Arroz de Pato or Duck Rice is a traditional dish and one of my favorite delicacies from Portugal, simple, economic and very flavorful dish. In English is called Duck rice.
Duck meat cook with chourico, bacon and other aromatic ingredients to flavor the meat and broth with a cooked rice with the duck broth and all cooked ingredients together finishing in the Oven. This is a very comfort dish. It is very easy to make it and turns out so well, follow my recipe to make it easier and authentic.
Cooking time 1 hour 50 minutes
Serves 6 to 8
To make it easy I follow three steps to complete this dish:
Ingredients to prepare
1st Step
1/2 Duck around 1 and half kilograms
2 liters (8 cups) Water
1 Chourico of meat
200g of meaty Bacon without skin
1 big Onion
1 piece of Ginger (optional)
3 cloves Garlic
2 Bay Leaves
1 Carrot
60 ml of Brandy
Olives to garnish
Black Pepper to your taste
2nd Step
Salt to your taste
1 big Onion
3 cups of Rice
Note: I used 250 milliliters cup for the measurement
How to make it:
1 - First Step
Prepare all ingredients for this step.
Into 4 liters pot, put all Ingredients.
First 1/2 Duck cleaned and chopped into big piece and add, Bacon, Chourico - use fork to poke on it which helps to get flavor out. Add 1 onion chopped in half, Carrots, crushed Ginger, crushed Garlic, Bay leaves, 60ml (1/4 cups) of brandy you can use Porto wine or White or Red wine instead, 2 liters (8 cups) of water to cook and black pepper to your taste - I put almost half teaspoon.
Next put the lid on then bring it on the gas, turn gas to over high heat until it boils.
Then let it boil for at least 5 minutes, lid off then you can see spume on the broth, remember to remove them properly to get a clear broth.
After taking the spume out turn heat into medium, put the lid on - if you think your lid is lighter then put it a bit open on a side which helps to not overflow when it boils. Then cook it for 40 to 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes passed, check if its cooked, it needs to be tender, if not then cook 5 more minutes.
Turn off the gas and remove the pot, next take the duck fat out while broth is still hot, there are many way to separate the fat but you can use a simple spoon and scoop the upper part of the broth where we have the fat layer.
Take the all meat and other ingredients out and set aside to cool down.
Meanwhile strain the broth into the big bowl if there are more fat appears on the bowl just fold the paper towel and tap on the broth which helps to remove the excess fat, you can still keep a bit of the fat to give the magic flavor to this dish.
Wait for the Duck meat to be colder so you can shred it into small strips, try to take all meat out as much as you can. To do this you can use gloves if you want but I like to do with clean hands.
Next is chopping part.
Chop the bacon in small strip.
Chourico, take the top part out then chop round pieces in half centimeter thick.
Carrot chop in the long side, after chop in half centimeter think pieces then set a side.
Clean the chopping board then dice the onion in the smallest cubes possible like minced and set aside.
2 - Second Step
The Second steps is to cook the rice.
In the dry pot put the duck fat, you can use olive or others oil but duck fat makes it more authentic and flavorful, add onion then turn the heat onto medium high then let them infuse slowly, stir a bit, until it becomes translusive.
Add rice.
Mix them well and fry a minute then add 6 cups of broth, mix it.
We haven't add salt because Chourico and Bacon are rich in salt. Taste then if you need more salt, add to your taste then mix well and wait to boil.
After start boiling reduce the heat to medium low and lid on then let it cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until all water dries out.
After 15 minutes, lid off, you will see the little holes in the rice, it means rice is done and fluff it a bit to stop cooking more, good thing about this rice is it doesn't become mushy. Check my How to make the Perfect rice video for more details.
3 - Third Step
For the third steps we are going to put all prepared ingredients together:
Cooked rice
Chopped Chourico, Bacon and Carrot
Shredded Duck meat
And pan which goes inside my Oven
You can use a baking tray or a deep pan that goes inside your Oven.
First pre heat the Oven into 200º
Put everything in baking try with layers.
First add half of the rice and flatten it then add shredded duck, bacon cubes and chopped carrot, leave a bit from each of them to put on top of the another layer of the rice to give a finishing touch.
Add the rest of the rice, then flatten it from the back side of spoon or ladle.
Add the rest of the Duck, bacon and carrot to give a crispy texture then add sliced of chourico on top. Bring into oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until upper part caramelizes because all other ingredients are already cooked, no need for a long cooking time.
After a few minutes you can see the chourico and other ingredients are getting crispy and caramelized.
Now take it out from the oven. So our Arroz de Pato is ready.
Garnish, add some olives and serve with a nice salad and lemon wedges.
Enjoy!
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