cooking duck

I found it! a good method for cooking duck that is. I found a recipe that called for boiling the duck for 45-60 minutes before roasting it. It works perfectly. Most of the fat rendered off in the boiling so it wasn't a big hunk-o-grease when it was pulled from the oven. the only stupid thing I did was to season the water. The rendered fat in the water had the ginger taste and that made its uses limited. next time I will just boil it plain and season it heavily before roasting so that I will have someduck fat to use. supposed to be good for lots of stuff.

now the problem is that cute factor. we had several that I was going to butcher but my daughter didn't want to so we gave them away. well, to be honest I wasn't looking forward to butchering them either or I would have despite daughte,r or rather I wouldn't have asked her opinion.

Use that seasoned grease as a fire starter, smear on junk mail.

Yes, the 'cute factor' is something I have issues with, too.  It probably wouldn't bother me to have to kill a person who needed it, but a cute little animal....

Sue

Welcome to the world of tender duck!!  I used a similar recipe-except mine called for simmering the duck in a broth as opposed to just water. 

Another good method for cooking duck is to steam it, using a bain-marie (water bath).

Take a good pot or dutch oven and put the duck in it.  Don't worry about trying to cover the duck with the lid-leave it off.  Put both in a big roasting pan filled with water (the water should go 3/4 up the pot sides).  Note: don't use a disposable roasting pan-use a real one.  Cover the roasting pan with tin foil (get the super wide length tin foil): tenting to leave room above and around the pot and duck.  Cook over med-high heat for 2-3 hours (depending on desired tenderness), start timing once water has reached a boil.  My roasting pan is large enough to take two burners.  The idea to create a large steam bath for the duck.  Check occasionally to drain accumulated fat from pot and check water level in roasting pan.

Take duck out of water bath and pat dry.  Let it air dry for 2 hours.  Roast in an oven for 20-30 minutes at 500  F degrees .  This will give you that wonderful Chinese style crispy skin.  I let the duck cool and then carve it Chinese style (same as cutting for Garde-Manger).  I add a reduced sauce of stock and Hoisin sauce, drizzling the duck strips with it.

I normally stuff my duck with ginger and scallions and rub the cavity with Hoisin sauce before steaming it.  Since you are don't want flavored duck fat, you could always do a separate broth with ginger, to be added when duck is done.

There are other methods of steaming duck-namely tying it up over a pot or wok filled with boiling water.  My attempts with those methods were disastrous -name because my stock pot was not deep enough to accommodate a duck tied over it...and my knot tying skills leave something to be desired...  Don't let my experiences deter you though

Some recipes also have you crisp the skin by frying it in a wok as opposed to roasting it.  My preference is for the roasting method..but again that is just my preference!

I found that the boil method gave me a tender stew like quality to the meat whereas the steaming method gave me an equally tender but more compact (less stew like) meat...closer to what one gets with roast duck in a Chinese restaurant.

Thanks for sharing your recipe..please share more!!  It is fun to see another person experimenting with Duck recipes!

I want to try the steaming thing now. I would like to get a little closer to the 'roast' texture. I have a big 'ol goose in my freezer to try next. never had goose before but I am assuming it needs to be treated similiarly to duck.

I think the ginger-flavored grease would be just fine in matzoh ball soup...maybe add some lemon or orange to the broth as well.  That sounds like just the thing for my cold. 

Don't forget to use "schmaltz" as a search term if you're googling for recipies.  Yiddish cuisine has all sorts of uses for duck fat.

I'm following a recipe from an excellent book about gourmet grassfed (free range) meat, which I will review soon. It's more like I'm using some tips from the book, so I did some things differently.
First I deboned the duck, and cooked a broth with these bones. I preserved it for later.
Then I cooked the gizzard, liver and heart together, cut in bite size pieces. Delicious, but the gizzard was super hard.

I cut the meat (salted, peppered and with some herbs) into smaller pieces, wrapped it in the skin and cooked it in the oven for about an hour. It released lots of greasy liquid and I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm thinking to put the meat in that grease/water or whatever it is, with more herbs, refrigerate it for a few hours, and then wrap it in the skin again and cook some more...?



I'm surprised that it stayed in this shape, by the way. I didn't tie it.

Is anyone doing Muscovy? I just started with a straight run of 10, pretty sure there are 4 boys.  I don't want to try to pluck, so I'm thinking instant pot and then smoker, what do y'all think? I ve read that they are mostly not fatty, no like ducks? I've never eaten either.

Nola Lewis wrote:Is anyone doing Muscovy? I just started with a straight run of 10, pretty sure there are 4 boys.  I don't want to try to pluck, so I'm thinking instant pot and then smoker, what do y'all think? I ve read that they are mostly not fatty, no like ducks? I've never eaten either.

They have very very little fat on them, treat them just like beef and you'll be fine. Plucking them is a real pain I plucked a few of the big boys but all the girls got skinned, really to much time and effort to pluck them.


Flora, I would fish out the ball of duck and roast it off to crisp the skin, the liquid is probably nearly all fat, let it cool down and separate it, any bits under the fat will make a nice gravy. If you cool it and mix it all together it will almost certainly come back out again when you reheat it.

Skandi Rogers wrote:any bits under the fat will make a nice gravy

You were right, I did this and the gravy is super delicious!

Going back to the OP, I'm wondering is duck considered to be something difficult to cook (compared to other poultry)? If so, what about it makes it different/difficult?

The only reason I ask is because I'm pretty sure that all 4 of the ducklings I got last spring are drakes (I've never heard any of them actually "quack," only make the quiet chattering noise). If that's the case then three of them will need to go in the freezer this autumn, maybe all 4 if I can't find a few hens before then.

Also, are they a lot different to dress out, compared to chickens or turkeys? Could I just skin them a piece out the meat?
Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Kc Simmons, the difficulty in cooking was for me that it gets too hard easily. But I figured it out. After third attempt...
As for plucking, I think there is machine that does it? Mine looked as if the feathers were burned too.
If you can, it's better to keep the skin. You can use it to cover some veggies and cook them in the oven.
The meat is better cooked in water, separeted from the fat.
Deboning took a while too, but it was worth it because I could do more different things - from the bones, and then meat, skin etc.
Also, I never had so much of a carcass. Looked as if they cut right behind the head.

Flora Eerschay wrote:Kc Simmons, the difficulty in cooking was for me that it gets too hard easily. But I figured it out. After third attempt...
As for plucking, I think there is machine that does it? Mine looked as if the feathers were burned too.
If you can, it's better to keep the skin. You can use it to cover some veggies and cook them in the oven.
The meat is better cooked in water, separeted from the fat.
Deboning took a while too, but it was worth it because I could do more different things - from the bones, and then meat, skin etc.
Also, I never had so much of a carcass. Looked as if they cut right behind the head.

Thank you for sharing!
I have done lots of rabbits but I'm still inexperienced with dispatching and cleaning poultry. This fall I will need to do the ducks and whatever males I have in the young turkeys and chicks that hatched this spring. Trying to learn what I can before then in hopes of making the process easier

I think the difficulty in cooking duck is that if in the US, culturally it isn't so common so we are not experienced at it. My first duck cooking experience made me more determined to learn how. I over cooked it thinking poultry needed to be DONE. Not so as fully cooked duck breast is a lot like liver and at least at my house nobody would eat it. I have used Alton Brown's method of steaming before roasting in a hot cast iron skillet in the oven.

Now my new challenge is older duck. We were harvesting rabbits this fall and decided to harvest our older drakes to cut feed costs. They were coming on 5 years of age. I figured I could find some guidance on cooking them somewhere on the internet, but I have not had luck. Anyone have some experience with getting the most out of old duck?

Hi Kathryn, we killed and ate a three year old drake last year, and he and his six month old counterpart were both aged in the fridge for a week before we ate them, and both were as tender as anything.  So delicious.  To roast whole, I butterflied the carcass, pierced the skin all over with a skewer (just the skin, not the meat underneath), and roasted on a rack with a pan underneath to catch the fat and juices.  Wonderful crispy skin, tender meat.

Oh, and I watched a bunch of duck hunter videos before I killed my ducks;  on their recommendations, I bought some food grade wax to pluck with.  They plucked so quickly and cleanly after being waxed--definitely the way to go.

By the way, the whole cute thing about ducks seemed to disappear pretty quickly when it came to our drakes.  They got so mean, not just to us but to our poor female ducks too, who were never willing to mate with them and always tried to run away (we kept the one drake they willingly mated with).  Roosters get a bad name, but our drakes were far worse than any rooster we ever had.  It was satisfying to get my hatchet out for those jerk birds, and this is coming from a soft hearted city girl.

G Freden wrote:

By the way, the whole cute thing about ducks seemed to disappear pretty quickly when it came to our drakes.  They got so mean, not just to us but to our poor female ducks too, who were never willing to mate with them and always tried to run away (we kept the one drake they willingly mated with).  Roosters get a bad name, but our drakes were far worse than any rooster we ever had.  It was satisfying to get my hatchet out for those jerk birds, and this is coming from a soft hearted city girl.

Yeah, we had too many drakes and while they are fairly chill in winter, spring would mean more fighting and overly randy ducks. Thanks for the info. I just blanched and plucked, but I do have feathers (small ones) to get out. I will try the wax.

Kathryn Chapman wrote: I just blanched and plucked, but I do have feathers (small ones) to get out. I will try the wax.

If they already have bare skin, the wax may not work but just tear the skin.  Might be better to singe the down off.