On a whim yesterday, we bought a duck during our visit to the butchers. We’d never cooked a duck before, and thought it might be fun to try. Pete suggested that we roast the bird in our Römertopf clay baker, and it worked brilliantly!
We began by washing the bird under running water and removing any loose fat. It was dried and rubbed with a little Maldon salt, then laid in the presoaked clay baker and covered with the lid. The Römertopf baker needs to be submerged in cool water for at least 15 minutes before use, and it needs to go into a cold oven to ensure it doesn’t crack.
Once the pot was in the oven, the temperature was set to 200C with fan, and the duck was left to bake for two hours with the lid on. We took it out a couple of times during the cooking process and carefully poured the excess fat and liquid into a bowl. After the initial two hours, the bird was given an additional half an hour with the lid off to brown.
Edit July 14: we now bake the bird for 40 minutes at 200C with fan (lid on), followed by 2 hours at 150C with fan (lid on), then finish at 175C with fan (lid off) to brown and crisp. The fat and stock are poured off at both the 40 minute mark and when the lid is removed near the end. This results in a super tender duck!
Despite the long oven time, the meat was very tender – possibly a product of the clay baker, which effectively steamed the bird as it was roasting. And because we’d poured the excess liquid off, the end result wasn’t particularly fatty, which was somewhat surprising.
We served the roast duck with our homemade plum sauce, steamed rice and a side of stir-fried green vegetables.
. . . . .
The bowl of liquid we’d drained off as the duck was roasting was left overnight in the fridge, during which time it separated and set. This morning I was able to stash into my freezer a container of duck fat, which will be perfect for very naughty roast potatoes…
…and a container of the most wonderfully concentrated duck stock. It set to a solid jelly – an indication of the high gelatin content. It will form the basis of a delicious mushroom risotto in the near future.
We always roast chickens (and now ducks) in the Römertopf baker. There are several reasons for this – the oven stays clean (notice how that was my first consideration?), and because the pot is presoaked, the cooked meat is moist and flavoursome.
However, the real bonus is that we end up with a small container of fantastically concentrated stock, which forms the basis of a second meal. I believe that if we’re going to eat meat, then we have a responsibility not to waste any of it, so being able to extend it just that little bit further makes me very happy!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Thanks for the inspiration, Celia!
I’ve never cooked a duck before, either, and I have a Romertopf hidden in the recesses of my pantry, but never think to use it.
I imagine it would make very nice crusty bread, too.
Am on my way to drag it out now ….
Amanda, we use ours all the time, but can I recommend strongly against using it for bread? If you have one of the ones sold in Australia, they have a glazed base (as they’re made in Germany – the ones sold in the US don’t have a glaze and are made in Mexico). Anyway, I’d heard it was great for bread, so I soaked the pot as instructed and heated it in the oven, then when it was hot, took the lid off and put in the bread dough. Disaster! The cold dough (it wasn’t really that cold!) cracked the glaze – I could hear and see it cracking, but I couldn’t do anything about it. The pot is still fine to use, but I’ve relegated it to our “spare” Romertopf (yes, I know, only I would have a “spare” Romertopf) and we don’t use it all the time.
Oh, and before anyone has a go at me for having two Rs – they sit side by side in our big 90cm oven, and we’ll often use two when we have friends over.. :)
Thanks for the tip, Celia. I will double check, but as far as I can remember mine has no glaze at all – I think it came from the US. I have had it for at least 20 years.
OK so now I want my book back!!!! only joking, but you have inspired me to buy another Romertopf.Maybe I will find a cheapie at a fleamarket in Tasmania. I have found lots of handy cooking gadgets down there for my other house. Roz
LOL! Roz, that book is a treasure, thank you again for sending it to me. I love how all the recipes are marked either “suitable for slimmers” or “not suitable for slimmers”. :)
If you don’t find a cheapie at the flea market, the Romertopfs are still $39 at Peters of Kensington!
This duck looks lovely and crispy. I had no idea that you would get stock by draining off the juices – thanks for that information. I’ve also never come across a Romertopf before. Will check our your other posts on this piece of equipment. I so love potatoes roasted in duck fat!!
Sarah, when we roast a chicken in on open pan, we don’t usually have many juices to drain off – I think that’s a product of the closed clay pot. In on open pan, I think the juices tend to evaporate off. The Romertopf works on the basis of soaking the pot in water first, and then as it heats up it releases the liquid back into the dish, effectively steaming and roasting it at the same time. It takes a little bit of practice to get right, but it’s really changed the way we cook now – whenever it’s all too hard, everything gets thrown into the Romertopf. Best of all, the whole thing, unscrubbed, goes straight into the dishwasher.
Thanks Celia – just had a read of your lasagne post, it sounds brilliant. Just wondering though if you miss the flavouring from browning the meat and other ingredients from putting everything in raw and then effectively steaming it all (I imagine the flavours are milder?)?
Sarah, yes we do. These days we only really make the Romersagne when we’re pushed for time – don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious, and I adore how clever the whole thing is, but we did miss the browned meat in the lasagne in the end. It doesn’t really taste as steamed as you might imagine, because meats brown in the Romertopf quite well, but it still wasn’t quite as dry as a regular lasagne.
Excellent idea to use the clay cooking pot. Duck cooked very slowly is the only way to go!
Looks delicious!Glenmore Meats sounds like a great place too, hard desicions on what to purchase I bet!….everyone here (Italy) always ask if kangaroo/croc. etc. meats are easily available…I guess only 10 years ago it was a bit different as I can’t remember the easy access of being able to buy these products. What’s Wagyu beef…ignorance on my part! The duck looks delicious, a treat in my house,cooked slowly with a tomato salsa and served with polenta…x
Looks great! What a lovely meal you must have had! We get a very nice variety of duck called Gressingham, darker meat and less fat than the trad farmed white duck.
And I picked up some duck eggs in the butchers yesterday. So I might have to make a cake this week. You of course have eggs coming out of your ears, (that sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it? but you know what I mean x)
Anna, thanks – the clay pot gets used at least once a week here! :)
Yvette, you’re right, 10 years ago kangaroo was mostly used for pet food, and crocodile was pretty much unheard of! I still haven’t tried croc, but I did once try camel, and my advise is..just don’t! Wagyu beef is the latest trendy meat in most fine dining restaurants around here – a Japanese breed with extensive marbling, known for its extremely tender texture. Wagyu cattle is now being bred in Australia. Your duck sounds wonderful! :)
Jo, I’m not sure what breed of duck this was – it’s the first time I’ve actually seen duck on sale! And yes, we do have eggs coming out of our ears at the moment – it’s completely lovely. :)
I love making multiple meals from a single bird.
The best for that, for me, is cooking a whole chicken in a slow cooker.
I throw in some carrots (or peelings), a bit of onion and a bay leaf and then most commonly fill the pot with water to about half way up the bird. (Used to use half water half white wine but discovered it doesn’t make much difference to flavour and seldom have white wine in the house as neither of us drink it).
Cook it in slow cooker for 5-6 hours.
Take great care lifting the bird out as it’s so soft it often collapses into pieces if not careful.
Meal 1 Some of the chicken with whatever accompaniments we fancy.
Usually we get enough meat off the bird after that first meal for two further meals.
The carcass, skin (and some of the giblets if the bird came with them, like the neck) goes back into the slow cooker with fresh water, carrots, onions and water to make a second portion of stock. I had thought when I first read this that the second stock would be insipid but it’s just as good as the first.
Meal 2 Use 1 portion of the leftover meat and one of the two portions of stock to make fabulous chicken risotto.
Meal 3 Use another portion of the leftover meat in a cold chicken salad, hopefully with vegetables from our garden.
Meal 4 Use the second portion of stock to make a soup or a risotto, often with leeks, also from the garden.
:)
Kavey, I love that – four meals from the one chicken! I’m surprised you get decent stock after the bones have already had a five hour slow cook – I guess there is just so much more flavour in the bones than we realise!
Thanks for the extra advice, Celia, about the juices and their uses.
Thanks to you, I now do all my roast meats in the ‘R’ and they are always succulent. Mmmmmh! (Not sure I can bring myself to do duck though – I used to have an adorable pet duck name Sir Francis Drake….need I say more?)
I had wondered about those extra juices though and now I know that my untried hunch is correct and I don’t need to waste anything.
Sharron, I’m so happy you’re enjoying the Romertopf, thank you for letting me know! :)
What we do is pour off any leftover liquid, cover it and leave it in the fridge overnight. If we’ve cooked the chook or meat over a bed of potatoes, there’s often less to pour off, but when it’s the chicken on its own, there’s often quite a lot. The nice thing is that it isn’t all fat, and once it’s cooled down, the leftover stock (or consomme, as Pete calls it) can be completely defatted before use. It has the most beautiful flavour!
Oh YUM! I just feel like sinking my teeth into the crisp skin and juicy fat… and ohmygoodness.. the duck fat… very naughty indeed, but I can only dream about those roast potatoes you will be making…. mmmmm
Honey, it was delicious – there was a little Mexican standoff between the boys over the last piece! :) I was astounded how much duck fat we were actually left with! More than a cup from one 2kg duck!
But what about cleaning a Romertopf? The oven stays clean but I have a horror of cleaning baking pans. Is it easy to clean or do you just bake untill you cannot stand the look of it anymore???
Frances, I adore the Romertopf specifically for that reason. We stick the top and bottom, unrinsed, into the dishwasher. The glazed interior of the base comes out clean or nearly clean. The top and exterior of the bottom gets stained over time, but I don’t really mind that too much. With the duck, I didn’t get the R into the dishwasher until this morning, and I’ve just unstacked it straight from the dishwasher to the shelf. Note that I’m talking about the models they sell here in Australia, the US ones are unglazed, so I’m not sure how they wash, or whether they can go in the dishwasher.
If you have a look at the post I wrote ages ago about Pete’s Romertopf lasagne, down the bottom is a photo of the base after it came out of the dishwasher (I was so impressed by this that I just had to take the picture! :))
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/08/13/romertopf-lasagne/
There’s also a photo here of how the exterior looked after our first few months of use.
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2010/02/28/romertopf-bakers-revisited/
Cheers, Celia
Saving the stock and fat is so clever. These have all the concenrated flavours. I love having little stashes of stock in the freezer- it makes me feel rich!
Well put, Chef! That’s exactly how we feel when we get to pull out homemade concentrated stock to use is a dish.. :)
This looks amazing and really easy! Do you think I couldget a similar result in a cast iron pot (with a lid)? I am amazed at the amount of beautiful stock and duck fat you got – would love to try this myself!
Vita, thank you – it really was very easy! I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’d get the same result in a cast iron pot, simply because the clay pot is soaked first, which then basically steams the bird as it roasts…
Wow … the duck look so amazing! But this is really sad for me because it is impossible for me to find duck here. I wish I get some duck when we go south next month so I can try this delicious recipe.
Tes, I so hope you find one! I’m sure you would have some amazing ideas of things to do with duck! :)
I think I saw a dish similar to this in Aldi recently, Celia. It was a clay glazed roaster with lid and required soaking before cooking. I thought of you and your Romertopf – it all sounds so good! I think I would struggle with setting aside the time to soak as well as bake. And good on you for having a ‘spare’. I love spares and own two slow cookers for this exact purpose. Great for feeding crowds. :)
Chris, of course I had to race into Aldi and check this one out, especially since it was only $20! In the end I wasn’t tempted – the original was $39 (which is already about half price) – and I’d written to the manufacturers in Germany, and they’d assured me that all the clay and glaze was lead-free. I wasn’t sure where the Aldi one was made, so I wasn’t game to take a punt. Plus..um..there is that little issue of storage.. :)
I am tragically the queen of spares – I have a second one of everything!
Bravo Celia! That duck looks magnificent! And well done too for saving the precious duck fat. Nothing like goose fat or duck fat potatoes. Mmm….
Thanks Lorraine! We had duck fat roasted potato wedges tonight – quite indulgent, but oh-so-delicious! :)
That looks so good Celia. This really does convince me that I need a romertopf baker.
Gifts that keep on giving….the meat, the fat and the juices. I love duck, though since we’ve discovered frozen roast duck breasts, I’ve eased off on buying (frozen) whole duck. I am looking forward to the day I come to Oz….to visit :-) you all. Don’t be surprised! LOL
I used to have a claypot just like yours…. I broke it! It still makes me sad to think about it
I now have a glazed clay pot just for bread – but I never soak it, just pre-heat in the oven and then add the bread, close the lid etc etc
It works very well – when I had the Romertopf, I remember using it a couple of times for a no-knead type bread, but for some reason it got stuck to the clay and part of my bread stayed with it, so maybe it all depends on the kind of clay pot you have
Your duck is mouthwatering!
That duck look so delicious! My husband and I often buy roasted duck from the Chinese market near our house as a special treat once in a while. But I bet it isn’t nearly as tasty as yours. My husband “needs” one of those Römertopf pots – he just doesn’t know it yet. I think I’ll have to see if I can find one around here – maybe an early Christmas present. :)
I think the first comment nailed it – what an inspiration. When I get wild ducks, they are smaller than the domestics. I will have to remember your method!
Dan and Cat, there is a brand sold in the US which has a glazed base like the Romertopf – I haven’t used it, but I believe it’s called a Schlemmertopf. Not sure if it’s dishwashable like the R though…
Oz, look forward to it! :)
Sally, I’ve heard clay pots can be great for breadmaking – I’m just not game to try again! In theory they should be great though…
Steve, thank you for dropping by – I’ve just received my Hamelman book in the mail today, so hopefully I can make more of a contribution to the Mellow Bakers group! :)
Great! You’ve got Hamelman’s…. I will be looking forward to your posts – it is my favorite bread book, together with Lepard’s
You will simply LOVE IT!
i’m totally with you: i really dislike cleaning the oven after a duck debacle. i will get a clay pot just for this reason alone, what a joy to have duck again. and duck fat, oooh. and that stock already reduced to demiglace, the sauces you can build on it, yum!
Dana, we had potatoes roasted in duck fat last week – they were wickedly delicious!