Slow Cooked Duck

We decided to go for something a little bit different for Christmas dinner this year, or should that be last year now? Time is really flying by and Christmas feels so long ago now we are back at work and into the daily grind. Being on the boat we were fairly limited with our big dinner choices so we plumbed for a duck crown to stick in the slow cooker with some sweet potatoes. We are both big fans of duck and much prefer it to turkey so as there was just the two of us for dinner this time around we thought, why not have something we will thoroughly enjoy?

As is normally the case I was up first so preparing lunch fell to me. It couldn’t have been much simpler, peel and cut up the sweet potatoes into small pieces, I did this the night before and left them in a pan of cold water. Coat the potatoes in oil and some Cajun spices then place a layer in the bottom of the cooking dish. Sit the duck on top, lightly oil the skin and sprinkle again with Cajun spices. Stick the cooker on high then head back to bed for an hour to enjoy some more snooze. Simplicity or what? And right in the spirit of our lazy Christmas break afloat.

After an hour I turned the cooker to low and forgot about it for the day, just occasionally peeking through the glass lid to check that it wasn’t running dry. I needn’t have worried the duck fat kept everything nicely lubricated and made a great base for the next day’s stew. We left the duck cooking whilst we went about our daily comings and goings, heading to the pub in Saxilby for a few pints at lunchtime, leaving the inverter to provide power for the slow cooker whilst we made merry over the road in the pub. After heading back up river to our mooring and having a couple more drinks for good measure, I added some sprouts and stuffing balls to the pot, turned the cooker onto high power again and left it for another hour or so before serving up.

The result was a succulent duck that fell from the bone and was cooked to perfection, perfectly moist and full of flavour and easy to carve, well it mostly fell apart. The sweet potatoes were just right and the stuffing and sprouts were steamed and cooked exactly as we like them, so they were still firm with some bite to them. It couldn’t have gone much better.

All in all the duck was in for around about nine hours, an hour start and finish on high power and the remaining time on low power. A hassle free Christmas dinner if ever there was one but boy was it tasty and we will certainly be cooking it again over the summer months whilst we are out and about cruising.