There is a very special moment, sometime late on Christmas morning, that makes it all worthwhile. It is the first time I slide the bird gently, warily from the oven and baste its golden skin with the juices from the roasting tin. The skin is the colour of palest lavender honey, the wings are turning sticky at the tips, the potatoes are coming along nicely thank you and the unmistakable smell of Christmas lunch is starting to fug up the kitchen. Be it a goose, a turkey, or a couple of pheasants it is a proud, hopeful moment, spooning the savoury juices over the ballooning breast and watching them run down between the legs and into the depths of your Christmas lunch.
Basting a roasting bird is probably not as essential as this cook likes to think it is; I just love doing it. To my mind, only good can come from bathing a roast in its own herby, buttery juices. Sure, goose hardly needs it, with its robe of delectable fat, and the way many choose to roast their turkey - first on its breast, then on its back - probably renders such tender, loving care virtually redundant. Other contenders for the feast, such as partridge, chicken and pheasant, will also benefit from the attention of a cook and their basting spoon.
I was once the proud owner of a turkey baster, but it got used for something non-foodie and I have never really fancied using it again since. It now sits forlornly in the scullery, remnants of whatever it was used for still trapped inside. (I think its alternative use had something to do with the decorators, but I really can't remember.) Anyway, it's a large spoon I use now, a gadget that works almost as well. The main thing is to make sure you don't miss any bits as you drizzle and slather the pan stickings over the browning skin.
Those pan juices will add moisture and flavour, but they are also the cooking medium for whatever else is round the tangle of legs and wings. Bacon rolls, short lengths of sausage, parsnips or, the best treat of all (and the real reason I roast anything at Christmas), the potatoes. The basting liquid is a magical linctus of buttery meat juices, pepper, lemon, onion, herbs and salt, which both crisps skin and spuds and permeates the flesh with savour.
The base of the basting liquid is a crucial detail. Today's clean-flavoured, healthy cooking means that olive oil is most likely to be the backbone, but the solidified cooking fat of birds gone by (dripping, for want of a better word) is a much tastier possibility, and with a pheasant or guinea fowl I do think that butter should figure in there, too, only because it adds so much in the way of flavour and colours the skin so beautifully.
It would be plain daft not to make the most of the fat that oozes from roasting a bird. Potatoes are the obvious choice - roasties in goose fat are about as scrummy an accompaniment as you can get. This doesn't mean I am about to go back to cooking in artery-clogging dripping, but it seems a crime to waste such treasure. I recently exploited the fat that poured from a roast duck as it cooked to add flavour to thick slices of potato I piled around it. The result was the most sublime potatoes - part scrunchy, part melting, and none of that burning fat you so often get when you roast a duck.
Each Christmas I get excited about a different yule roast. One year, it's a goose with baked apples, the next it's pheasant with Madeira. Once I roasted a little partridge for everyone, while another time they made do with the under-rated flesh of a guinea fowl. Yet time and again I come back to a couple of big ducks. They serve two to three a piece (just) and are difficult to ruin.
I am not a member of the rare-duck club, much preferring mine properly cooked, juicily brown all through, so they tend to be more good-natured to cook than some. Anyway, as the carver of the family, it is considerably easier to cut a duck into quarters than carve a turkey. And although you get some bones and bits for soup, you don't get so much duck that you never want to see it again till next year.
Roast duck with pancetta, potatoes and Marsala
The point of this recipe is that the potatoes absorb some of the duck fat, and you can then balance the richness with some peas with lemon and mint. I would be tempted to offer a watercress and orange salad, too. Serves 2 generously.
1 large duckling, weighing about 2.5kg
6 medium-sized potatoes, such as Maris Piper
150g pancetta
olive oil, mild, not fruity
5 or 6 little thyme sprigs
a wine glass of Marsala
2 medium onions
bayleaves
Preheat the oven to 200 C/gas mark 6.
Remove the giblets from the duck, rinse the bird inside and out and pat it dry with kitchen paper. If you can do this an hour or so before you begin to cook, leaving the duck in a cool place, then all to the good.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into finger-thick slices, dropping them into cold water as you go. Cut the pancetta into cubes, put it into a large roasting tin with a tablespoon of oil, then warm it over a low heat, letting the pancetta flavour the oil, but without it colouring. Introduce the slices of potato, shaken dry, into the fat and let them cook slowly.
While this is going on, peel and cut the onions first in half then each half into about six, then add them to the potatoes along with the thyme leaves stripped from their stems. Turn everything over gently as it cooks, letting the potatoes and onions colour very slightly. Season with salt and black pepper then remove from the heat.
Prick the skin of the duck all over with a fork, then season it inside and out with salt. Lay the duck on top of the potatoes then put it in the oven and roast for an hour to an hour-and-a-half, until the potatoes are soft and both they and the duck are golden. From time to time, push the spuds, particularly those that are browning too quickly to one side, and spoon any cooking juices over any that appear dry.
During the cooking, carefully tip off most of the fat that is pouring out of the duck and that has not been absorbed by the potatoes.
Test to see that the duck is done. There should be no sign of blood in the juices and the skin should be crisp and singing. Remove the potatoes to a warm serving dish.
Turn the oven up to 220 C/gas mark 7. Put the duck back in the oven again and let it crisp up for 5 minutes or so. Then remove the duck to a warm dish.
Quickly pour the Marsala into the roasting tin and place it over a moderately high heat (you don't want it to boil away), scraping at any stuck bits in the pan. The idea is to get any pan stickings and sediment to dissolve into the gravy.
While the sauce is bubbling, carve the duck and serve it with the potatoes. Check the pan juices for seasoning - they may need a little salt - then spoon over the duck.
· If you are roasting two ducks, you will need a very large roasting tin and twice the number of potatoes, three onions, but the same amount of thyme. You will also need to increase the roasting time by about 10 minutes, and add an extra half a glass of Marsala to the gravy.
· The fat that you have poured from the duck as it cooks shouldn't go to waste - it is one of the most delicious of all cooking mediums. Put it in the fridge to set, then use it for roasting potatoes.
Peas with lemon and mint
I can never think of duck without peas. You could serve plain boiled peas if you like, but these are good, too, and have the zing of lemon and mint to balance the richness of the duck. Here, the peas are cooked with very little water, so they partly cook in their own steam. Serves 2-3.
225g frozen peas
juice of half a lemon
3 sprigs of fresh mint, chopped
2 tbsps of olive oil
Put the peas, a little salt and four tablespoons of water into a small pan, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a fast simmer.
Cook, uncovered for about 8 minutes. Squeeze the lemon juice over and stir in the mint.
