Out Of The Chicken Rut
When you cook as much as I do, it’s easy to fall into a rut! But you can only have so much chicken.
To break the monotony, my family has been eating more and more duck over the last several years. It’s a flavorful bird that, in my opinion, has really been underused by the home cook.
It can be daunting to branch out into new culinary territory, and a few of my friends comment that they avoid duck because they don’t know how to prepare it. Thanks to this post, though, this excuse will no longer be valid.
Where To Find It And What To Do With It
Another problem is most consumers don’t know where to get less common poultry items. I used to buy my ducks at a local Asian market, but now I go to Maple Leaf Farms, an Indiana-based producer. (You can read their detailed ‘Stewardship’ handbook here and decide for yourself what you think of the company.)
For this particular meal, I used two pre-roasted duck halves. The total preparation time was about 30 minutes, which was perfect on a school night after working all day.
My whole family loved it. That’s all I could ever hope for!
Crispy Orange-Glazed Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 cup fresh orange juice
- 1/2 cup orange marmalade
- 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons orange zest
- 1 tablespoon sugar and cornstarch mix
- 1/4 tablespoon salt
- 2 teaspoons grated ginger
- 1 orange, chopped into slices
- hot sauce, to taste
- 2 pre-roasted duck halves
Cooking Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and bake duck halves breast-side-down in a pan for 5 minutes.
- Combine everything else in a sauce pan and simmer on low heat. Remove glaze from burner when thickened.
- Flip the duck halves and brush on the glaze. Bake for another 10-15 minutes.
- Serve with rice, steamed veggies and hot sauce.
