Okay so what would you have with a duck dinner?

[TwoIfBySea]

I bow to the knowledge of the mumsnetters once again as I am completely and utterly stuck.

Have decided instead of roast chicken (which we have throughout the year) I am going to try and cook duck for DH, myself and ds twins - nearly 3 yrs. Turkey isn't a favourite in this house so duck it is, I think! But what goes well with duck? All I think of are chinese dishes, not very Christmassy!

Got to have chipolatas so if they don't go with it we will have separate!!!

remember that duck is not a great provider of meat.Much prefer it myself but very poor on the volume of meat front

We had a roast duck the other day and had a small pork joint too.

Roasties and peas go well. (Assume you did mean veg?)

Duck is kind of halfway in taste between chicken and game, I think, so you can put anything with it that you´d put with those things.

Especially nice are:

redcurrant sauce (in fact we always add redcurrant jelly to the gravy to give a kind of sweet and tangy sauce)

roast spuddies and parsnips! (obviously. Or roast sweet potato or carrot.)

bread sauce and/or baked onion rather than stuffing

the usual veg: my favourite is swde and carrot mashed up with butter, but also brocolli, sprouts, etc.

Also roast duck upside down so the breast doesn´t get too greasy (I think that's why anyway!)

you had duck and pork, Jan? Such luxury!

We had pork for christmas dinner a few years ago and it was the year the big film was Babe (gulp). I've stuck to poultry since then.TIBS - have you thought about goose? everything I said below applies, but it's more traditional. And delicious.

Well it was a 5lb duck and there were 9 of us!!!

braised red cabbage with cranberries and apples-a la nigella or delia
delia also does a lovely sauce for duck with just morello cherry jam and red wine

roast duck is very comon in austria for xmas dinner. along with red cabbage with apple(as miggy suggested) and potatoe dumplins and cranberry sauce

Oooh yummy ideas already! I had thought about goose but have never tasted it, never cooked it and I am not the most confident of cooks. I know ds twins eat almost everything I put in front of them but DH is a right fussy bugger!

I make the swede and carrot mash already to top my cottage pie (with potato) so that sounds a fantastic idea.

So cranberry and redcurrant are good with duck?

We have duck or goose every Christmas - my mum was the queen of this christmas dish and I now carry on the tradition in her absence - we stuff the duck or goose with a sweet and sour nut stuffing. Stuffing consists of breadcrumbs, leaks, apples (quarters or large cubes) mixture of nuts e.g. brazil, almond, hazelnut etc, leaks but only if you like leaks and herbs - rosemary etc. Stuff duck or goose and season skin liberally with your favourite seasonings (not just salt and pepper and throw some balsamic vinegar on the skin and roast - with this we have red cabbage, caramelised carrots, roast potatos, parsnips and usual roastie veg. Use juices from the roast duck to make a lovely apple sauce - more like a thin gravy - delicious. If we have duck we buy two big ones so there's enough to go round

Roast it but season it only with its own juices (time consuming but great results) and accompany it with boiled new potatoes, berry sauce and a bottle of Albion 1998.

two years ago we had duck for christmas dinner, long story but we shop online but Tesco's didn't send one, dashed to local supermarket who had the boned duck stuffed with apricot and something stuffing for £2 (well it was 2pm on Christmas eve), which was great. Anyhow what i'm trying to say is is worth buying the boned ans stuffed duck, it cooked quickly and was very easy to roast and carve. Would recommend.

We served it with the normal veggies but we love mixed roast veg (pots, sweet pots, parsnips, carrots, and aubergine)