My mind is literally blown by how easy this recipe is. Homemade crispy duck roasted in the oven in Chinese five spice alongside our very own homemade plum sauce recipe – incredibly good! Whilst the duck is roasting away we can work on the sauce so that they are ready at the same time. So good!
For the duck remove from all packaging and pat dry with some kitchen towel all over. We are going to dry rub it, so taking the moisture out will help here. Rub the salt and chinese five spice all over the duck on the outside and also the inside of the duck if you wish. Place a small cube of ginger and half the orange inside the duck and roast in the oven for approximately 2 hours or until the skin is nice and crispy. The oven should be pre-heated to gas mark 3 or equivalent (see temperature conversion charts) Remove from the oven a couple of times during baking to pour away any fat in the pan. Remove from the oven and allow to cool / cover in foil.
The sauce is so easy! Simply add all of the remaining ingredients – the juice of the other half of the orange, the grated ginger, vinegar, water, plums, sugar and honey and mix together until fully dissolved. Warm in a saucepan over a medium flame and simmer away to fully soften the plums for around 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool, the mixture should have thickened considerably, tweak the taste at this point to your liking of the sauce – more vinegar etc. Using a stick blender whizz up the plums inside the saucepan until smooth. This ensures to get all the flavour from the plums into the sauce including the skin too – why not eh?! Well, you can peel them at the start if you wish.
Pass the sauce through the sieve and you are left with a lovely thick plum sauce which also makes a great dipping sauce!
Serve by shredding the duck with 2 forks, and placing it on a warmed chinese pancake (in the fridge aisle of most supermarkets) alongsidie the spring onion, cucumber strips and the plum sauce. Absolutely delicious and tastes so fresh! Go for it and let us know how you get on!