
Served for dinner today when I had (still have, actually) a friend over: duck braised in orange juice infused with aromatics and spices, oven-crisped smashed potatoes, sauteed asparagus tips, and (unpictured) sparkling cider from Edinburgh which (yet again) nearly took out my eye when I popped it.
It’s not a very good picture, I fear, as the lighting was horrid, but I am immensely, immensely proud of the duck. I usually work only with duck legs, since cooking the actual body evenly requires more effort and time. This was one of the rare occasions which saw me forced to use the latter instead (a duck crown = some strange British way of sellng the trimmed top half of a duck), but if the feedback from the people who ate it is to be believed, it came out beautifully (or, to quote the two people who tried it, ‘very good’) - wonderfully moist and tender and juicy, with a mildly crisped skin (browned the duck before the braising, crisped it after in the oven for a bit).
