Roast duck with tarragon creme fraiche sauce

This is probably the worst photo I've ever put on this blog - this duck is out of focus and really ought to have been photographed later, once it was plated up. There's a reason for this - the little guy was smelling so good that the hordes gathered around the table had the duck carved, chewed and well on the way to being digested about fifteen seconds after the shutter closed.

I've mentioned roasting ducks before in relation to collecting the fat for use in potato dishes later. This recipe should ensure you a perfectly crisp, deliciously seasoned and glazed skin, fragrant and toothsome flesh, and plenty of delicious creamy gravy to anoint the meat. A large duck like this (the plate it's sitting on is a giant one) should serve four.

1 large duck
2 spring onions
1 lemon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground paprika
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
1 bunch tarragon
1 bunch parsley
250 ml stock (use a good pre-prepared stock or make your own with the bird's giblets)
3 tablespoons crème fraîche
1 tablespoon quince jelly (use redcurrant jelly if you can't find quince)
1 glass white wine
1 teaspoon cornflour
1 ½ teaspoons light soya sauce

Remove the bag of giblets from inside the carcass before you begin, and use the contents to make stock. Take any poultry fat out of the inside of the duck along with any excess skin, and use it to make gratons.

Dry the duck carefully inside and out with kitchen paper. Use a fork to prick the skin all over the bird (this will help excess fat to escape and help the skin to crisp beautifully), and place the halved lemon and the spring onions inside its cavity. Mix the salt and the spices together in a bowl, and rub the skin well with them, keeping a teaspoon of the mixture to one side. Sprinkle any remaining rub inside the bird. Place on a rack in a baking tray in an oven preheated to 200° C (400° F) for 45 minutes per kilogramme plus 15 minutes, basting every half hour with its own fat. (The duck will release a lot of fat; that rack is there to make sure that the bird doesn't sit in the fat and burn.)

Chop the herbs very finely and combine them with the quince jelly in a separate bowl.

To make the sauce, take the stock and bring to a simmer, reducing until flavourful. Stir the cornflour into the cold glass of wine and tip the mixture into the bubbling stock with the crème fraîche and the teaspoon of rubbing mixture you reserved when you prepared the duck. Keep the pan on a low simmer.

Ten minutes before the end of the cooking time, use a teaspoon to 'paint' the uppermost skin of the duck with the jelly and herb mixture and return the bird to the oven. Keep a teaspoon full of the jelly/herb mixture and stir it into the sauce. Taste the sauce and add more jelly or tarragon and salt if you think it needs it.

The duck will be beautifully glazed, its skin crisp and savoury from the spice rub. Rest the bird for five minutes once it comes out of the oven and serve with roast potatoes, a sharp salad to cut the richness of the flesh, and some green vegetables. Remember to decant the fat from the roasting tin into a large jar to keep in the fridge for roasting and frying potatoes.

Gratons de canard - duck scratchings

The UK's most splendid pub snack is, for my money, a lovely salty bag of pork scratchings. These aren't at all like American pork rinds, where the skin from some pork is separated from the fatty meat and baked; the English version uses that fatty layer which, along with the crackling skin, is rendered into a fatty, crunchy, salty mouthful that's perfect with a beer.

When we lived in France, Dr Weasel and I discovered that there's something even better than pork scratchings: duck scratchings. Ducks which are raised for foie gras don't end their usefulness with the sacrifice of their liver. Their plump breasts are sold as magret de canard; their fatty thighs and wings are preserved in confit; and the bits of fat from inside the bird and the trimmings of skin are rendered down for cooking fat. The crispy bits, or gratons, left over from the rendering are sold in some French charcuteries as a snack to accompany drinks. They are light, crisp, puffy and delectably ducksome.

My Dad was cooking a couple of ducks the other day, so we saved the extra skin and the poultry fat from inside the birds to render. The best way to do this is in a frying pan on the hob; baking the gratons will make them cook down unevenly, and may result in some burning.

Cut the pieces of skin and poultry fat from one or more ducks into pieces about an inch square in size. They will shrink dramatically when cooked. Spread out in a single layer in a frying pan and place over a low heat for about an hour, periodically pouring off the liquid fat that renders out. (Save it in a bowl and refrigerate it when you're done; you can use it for making perfectly crisp sautéed or roast potatoes.)

Continue to cook the gratons, turning and draining occasionally, until they are crisp and an even gold colour. Use kitchen paper to absorb any extra fat - your gratons should be dry to the touch and puffily crisp. Season with salt and pepper and serve warm with drinks as a pre-dinner snack.

I'm leaving for America for a few weeks tomorrow morning. I'll try to keep the blog updated, but I'm hoping the wireless provision at the Horizon Casino Resort in Lake Tahoe has improved significantly since last year. I've somehow managed to score a booking at Picasso in Las Vegas too, which is tremendously exciting - watch this space for a review.