Roast duck with orange salsa and coconut rice

Spending time at home over the Easter break, with much more time on your hands and ingredients you might not normally buy at uni, is a great opportunity for you to try out new recipes. You could try this recipe for roast duck with orange salsa and coconut rice this Sunday, and give your mum a night off from cooking duties as a mother’s day treat.

The recipe for the duck and orange salsa come from Nigella Lawson’s book ‘How To Eat’. She suggests serving noodles as an accompaniment, but I found that coconut rice, topped with toasted, flaked almonds, works really well, and stops the dish becoming too heavy.

Ingredients (for 4 people):

• Duck breasts (around 150g per person)
• 4 tablespoons of soya sauce
• 4 oranges
• 1 red chili
• 1 small red onion
• A couple of handfuls of mint
• 4 handfuls or fresh coriander
• 1 lime
• Basmati rice (2 handfuls per person, about a glassful for 4 people)
• 1 can of coconut milk
• A handful of flaked almonds

1. Turn your oven on and heat it to 220 ºc.

2. Cut the ends of the oranges and slice off the rind, try and remove as much pith as possible as well.

3. Slice the oranges and then cut them into small segments. Put them in a bowl with the finely chopped red onion, red chili (remove the seeds if you want), chopped mint and chopped coriander and stir everything together. Add a squeeze of lime juice. Taste the salsa and add more lime juice if you find it needs it.

4. Score the skin of the duck breasts- use a knife to slice fine diagonal lines into the skin, about 2 or 3 centimeters apart. Pour the soya sauce over the skin and put the duck in the over for 15-20 minutes. You should get a dark golden crispy skin and slightly pink flesh.

5. For the rice, add 2 cups of boiling water to one cup of rice and leave it on a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it, to make sure the water isn’t all absorbed before then (if it looks like it will be, add a bit more water). When the water has almost disappeared, taste the rice. If you think it needs more cooking, add a bit more water. When you think the rice needs just a minute longer, add half the can of coconut milk and stir it in, letting the liquid evaporate. Taste it, and if you want more flavour, add the rest of the milk.

6. In a dry frying pan, heat the flaked almonds until they brown slightly.

7. To serve, place the duck alongside the orange salsa, and spoon some of the salsa juice over the duck. Serve the rice alongside, topped with the flaked almonds.

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