Roast duck was on order for the weekend (above photo is after the birds had been drying out in the fridge for 24 hours).
As I had never roasted a whole duck before, a bit of research was in order, and in the end decided Crispy Chinese Duck was in order.
The method was pretty simple, just long winded.
In a large pot, water, soy sauce, 5 spice & honey was bought to the boil and then each duck got a dunking in it for 1-2 minutes, then taken out dried off and put on a tray with a rack uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours to dry off (I ended up putting a tea-towel underneath to catch any extra moisture).
Then the next day I made up the basting liquid (honey, orange juice, 5 spice & soy sauce)
With the oven at 225°C the ducks were put on a roasting pan (breast side up) in the bottom third of the oven (with a rack and a couple cups of water, to stop the fat from burning), Cook for 20 min, then turn over and cook another 20min.
Take the ducks out of the oven, and turn it down to 170°C, while the ducks are out pour off all the liquid from the pan, then turn them over prick the breast with a sharp knife (only pierce the skin not the flesh) and baste with the orange juice mixture and return to the oven for 20 min.
After 20 min take them out, turn them over and baste and cook for 20 min again, repeat once more.
They should be in the oven 100 min in total.
The meat turned out to be nice and tasty, still moist, the skin however was not crispy, it had a nice dark lacquered look but not at all crispy.
I think next time for the last 20 min the temperature of the oven should maybe go up to 180-190°C or maybe turn on the oven fan.
