Duck rice

Along with seafood rice, this is my favourite dish. It is also a traditional Portuguese recipe. My recipe is not completely traditional as it is flavoured with a stick of cinnamon. 

Deboning the duck takes a long time and it's boring work so I usually freeze half the duck meat and half the water to make another time without having to go through the preparation of the duck again. On this instance, we had 4 friends for lunch so I made it all in one go.

Serves: 8 persons.

Ingredients:

• 3.35kg duck (the butcher got me 2 smaller ducks instead of a large one, of 1.7 & 1.65kg)
• 1 chorizo:
• half sliced & quartered
• half sliced
• 600g long grain rice (Agulha - if you can find this Portuguese rice variety)
• 1 onion, halved
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 large bay leaves or 8 smaller ones
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 8 cloves
• salt & pepper to taste

Method:

1. Pressure cook the duck for 1h with 1 onion, the bay leaves, cinnamon stick, black peppercorns and cloves and enough water to almost cover the duck. Usually I use a white onion but I had run out so improvised with a red onion. In this instance I had to cook both ducks separately as there wasn't enough space in the pan for both and so I split the ingredients between them.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Sieve and reserve the water of the cooking of the duck.
   
   
   
3. Debone the duck and cut the flesh in small pieces.
   
   
   
4. Fry the chopped onion, chopped garlic cloves and sliced & quartered chorizo. Keep stirring and you won't need to add any oil as the chorizo will release enough fat.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Add the rice and fry for 1 min.
   
   
   
6. Add the water of the cooking of the duck slowly, one ladle at a time, until the rice is cooked. It should take around 20 min.
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Season the rice with salt & pepper to taste.
8. Pour the rice into an oven-proof dish and mix the duck in. I got distracted with our friends who arrived early and forgot to take pictures.
9. Flatten the top of the rice and place the chorizo slices on top.
10. Cook in a 200°C oven until the top is golden, about 15 min.