Back to Portuguese
Arroz de Pato
Serves 6 Prep 25 min Cook 3 hr Total 3 hr 25 min Type Meal Origin Portuguese

Arroz de Pato

Portugal's duck rice: long-grain cooked in rich duck stock with shredded confit meat, topped with sliced chouriço and baked golden.

Serves 6 Prep 25 minutes Cook 2 hours 30 minutes (duck) + 30 minutes (rice) Units Rate

Overview

Arroz de pato is Portugal's answer to paella, except baked rather than simmered, and the rice picks up a top crust of crisped chouriço at the end. You poach a whole duck for two hours with onion, bay, cloves and lemon peel until the meat falls apart, then strip the meat off the bones and put the bones back to extract another half hour of flavour from the stock. The strained duck stock cooks the rice, the shredded meat folds back in, and the whole thing goes into a baking dish under a layer of paper-thin chouriço slices. Twenty minutes in a hot oven and the top emerges deeply burnished, the chouriço slices crisp at their edges and slick at their centres. Sunday lunch, ideally with a heavy red from the Douro.

Ingredients

Duck stock

  • 1 whole duck (small, about 2 kg) - OR 4 large duck legs (about 1.4 kg)
  • 1 onion (large, halved)
  • 6 garlic cloves (crushed)
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 4 whole cloves
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • lemon peel (5cm strip)
  • 1 carrot (large, chopped)
  • 1 leek (chopped)
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 ½ litres cold water

Rice

  • 400 g long-grain rice (or Carolino, Portuguese-style)
  • 1 onion (large, finely diced)
  • 4 tablespoons duck fat (skimmed from the stock - or use olive oil)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 teaspoon salt (to taste)

Topping

  • 200 g chouriço sausage (Portuguese - or substitute Spanish chorizo)
  • 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley (chopped)

Method

Stage 1 - Duck stock

  1. Place duck (or legs) in a large stockpot with onion, garlic, bay, cloves, cinnamon, lemon peel, carrot, leek, salt and water.
  2. Bring to a boil; skim thoroughly.
  3. Reduce to a low simmer; cover loosely.
  4. Cook 2 hours until the duck is very tender.
  5. Lift duck onto a plate; cool slightly.
  6. Pull all meat off the bones in shreds (discard skin and bones, or return bones for an extra 30 minute simmer for deeper stock - recommended).
  7. Strain the stock through a fine sieve. Skim off the fat from the surface (reserve 4 tablespoons of duck fat).
  8. You should have about 1 ½ litres of stock.

Stage 2 - Cook the rice

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of duck fat in a wide heavy pot over medium heat.
  2. Add the diced onion; cook 8 minutes until soft.
  3. Add the rice; toast 2 minutes, stirring.
  4. Pour in 800 ml of the strained duck stock (about double the volume of rice).
  5. Add bay leaves and salt.
  6. Bring to a simmer; reduce heat to lowest; cover.
  7. Cook 18-20 minutes until tender. The rice should be just-tender, not mushy; some liquid remaining.

Stage 3 - Combine

  1. Off heat; fluff with a fork.
  2. Fold in the shredded duck meat and the remaining 2 tablespoons duck fat.
  3. Taste; adjust salt.

Stage 4 - Top and bake

  1. Heat oven to 200°C (180°C fan).
  2. Spread the rice mixture into a wide oven dish (about 26 cm round, or a 20 x 30 cm rectangle).
  3. Slice the chouriço into thin (3 mm) coins; arrange over the rice in a single overlapping layer.
  4. Bake 18-22 minutes - the chouriço crisps and releases its red-orange fat into the rice; the top of the rice deepens to gold.

Stage 5 - Serve

  1. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
  2. Serve straight from the dish.
  3. A glass of vinho verde or a young red on the side.

Notes

  • Strain the stock: Cloudy stock makes muddy-tasting rice. Strain through a fine sieve (or a sieve lined with muslin) before cooking the rice.
  • Don't over-cook the rice: Mushy rice is the failure mode. Pull it off heat slightly underdone; the oven finishes it.
  • Reserve some duck fat: The fat folded in at the end is essential richness. If you can't be bothered with the long stock simmer, supplement with bought duck fat (Tesco sells it).

Storage

  • Refrigerate 3 days; reheat covered in a 160°C oven 20 minutes.
  • Freezes 2 months.

More like this

1 / 4
Cataplana de Marisco

Cataplana de Marisco

A cataplana is a hinged copper clamshell pan, and the seafood stew named after it is one of those dishes where the cookware does the work. You build a base of onions, peppers, sliced chouriço, smoked paprika, tomato and white wine in the bottom of the cataplana, then layer clams, mussels, prawns and chunks of firm white fish on top, clamp the lid shut, and steam it all for less than ten minutes. The lid lifts at the table to release a cloud of paprika-and-wine-scented steam, which is the entire point of the dish. If you do not have a cataplana, any wide pan with a tight lid does the same job. Coriander and lemon at the end, crusty bread for the broth, and vinho verde for everything else.

Portuguese 55 minutes Serves4