Five Spice Roast Duck

This dish is my favorite thing to eat in the whole world. Chocolate? Cheesecake? Eh, I have plenty of self-control where those are concerned. Duck...I am completely helpless to resist. I have been known to devour an entire duck at one sitting. I swear if somebody threw a roast duck off a cliff, I would jump off after it.

If you've never tried Chinese-style roast duck, you're missing out. It's rich and delicious, and the flavor is amazing. And for heaven's sake, eat the skin! It's the best part of the entire duck. In Chinese cuisine, the skin is often removed and served separately from the meat. It's just that good.

Ingredients:
1 whole duckling/duck. You can find these in many stores now. Sometimes they're called ducklings, sometimes ducks.
3 tblsp. kosher salt
3 tblsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. Chinese five spice powder
1 tsp. powdered ginger

For the glaze:
2 tblsp. Hoisin sauce
1 tblsp. molasses
1 tsp. white vinegar
2 tsp. soy sauce

Take your duck out of the bag. Just like whole chickens, ducks often come with gizzards, necks, and other innards inside. Take those out, you don't need them. Same with the bags of stuffing and orange sauce that are often included with ducks. With either a knife or a kitchen scissors, cut off the wingtips. Unlike chickens, ducks have rather long wingtips. They tend to get in the way when you're trying to flip the duck, so it's easier to just remove them altogether.

Put your duck, breast-up, on a roasting rack in a roasting pan. Don't have a roasting rack? I use a cooling rack for cookies, laid widthwise across the top of the roasting pan. It works great. All you need to do is keep the duck at least 1 inch above the bottom of the pan. Mix the salt, sugar, five spice powder and powdered ginger in a bowl. Generously rub it all over the duck, both outside on the skin and inside the cavity. Put the entire roasting pan...rack, duck, and all...in the fridge, uncovered. You want it to sit in the fridge for a minimum of 24 hours, although it can be left for up to 2 days. The sugar and the salt will partially cure the duck and add to its final flavor and texture, and leaving it uncovered will let the skin dry out. Drying out the skin is key to having a crispy finish.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Add enough water to the roasting pan so there's about 1/2 inch of water on the bottom of the pan. Duck is a very fatty bird, and the fat drippings tend to smoke and burn in the pan at 400 degrees. Adding the water helps prevent this from happening, which keeps your house from getting smoky.

Put the duck in the oven for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, flip the bird over and cook it for another 45 minutes to brown the underside. In the meantime, mix all the glaze ingredients in a bowl. After the underside has cooked for 45 minutes, take the duck out of the oven and paint the uppermost side with the glaze. It's just like painting a wall - you want enough glaze to cover the surface completely and evenly, but not so much that it forms globs. Return your duck to the oven for 15 minutes. Take your duck out of the oven again, flip it over so the breast side is once more uppermost, then glaze that side of the duck. Return it to the oven for another 15 minutes.

Let the duck rest for about 15 minutes before serving.