The best thing I cook on the barbecue

When this duck comes off the barbecue the way it's meant to, it's the best thing I cook.

The first time I made it, it was perfect — pink through the middle, crisp-skinned, tender all the way to the edge — and I've chased that result ever since. There's a particular satisfaction to getting something right that genuinely fights back, and duck fights back. The window between just-right and overdone is narrow, the fat renders on its own timetable, and a few degrees is the whole game. Get it right, though, and there's nothing on my barbecue I'm prouder of.

The secret weapon to this plate isn't the bird at all — it's the chutney. A smoked ginger-peach chutney from one of my Weber books, and somewhere along the way I worked out the trick that makes it: don't just smoke the duck, smoke the chutney too. The ginger goes sharp and a little savoury, the sweetness pulls back, and you get something that cuts straight through the richness of the bird.

And here's the quiet generosity of it. On the nights the duck is perfect, the chutney is the supporting act. On the rare night I drift a few degrees too far, it's good enough to carry the whole plate anyway — a recipe with a second chance built in.

We ate the last one at home in Daylesford, late on a cold afternoon, just the two of us, with nothing on the side but salted edamame and a glass of Passing Clouds Bendigo Riesling from up in the goldfields. No occasion. Those are usually the best meals.

I wrote up the whole thing this week — the cook, the gear, the one change that matters, and an honest word about peaches being a summer fruit in a very wintery dish — in The Duck That Can Be Hard To Get Right (And the Smoked Chutney That Means You Don't Have To).

See you next Friday.

— Robert