I want to make Cantonese-style roasted duck but a whole-duck is too much for me and I have only a small oven so I want to try using the thigh or breast only.
My problem is I can't make the layer of fat underneath the skin melt down. With a whole-duck recipe you roast the duck at medium-high temp for 2-4 hours, but because I use only part of the duck, if I do that the meat-side will dry out.
Here is what I tried:
Using fingers, separate skin and meat (still intact end-part), stripes diamond pattern
Brine duck part for 1-2 hour (with salt, sugar, water, soy sauce, ginger, garlic)
Boil water with distilled vinegar, honey, red coloring then pour over skin-side, skin tighten up
Rub with baking powder, uncover in fridge to dry the skin
I tried this step two ways:
first time I roasted with convection oven 140 c, still fatty skin
second,used aluminum foil wrapped all over meat-part, uncover the skin-part in fridge 48 hours, roasted, not better than first one, skin still thick but cracking (skin too dry?)
How can I get the skin to be thin and the fat to melt?