Shortly before Thanksgiving, I bought a duck along with the turkey breast I bought to do for T-day. It was your standard frozen duck available in most larger grocery stores, about 6 pounds - seemed like a reasonable price. I'd eaten duck a few times, and each time I was always amazed. My favorite had been a very simple preparation - a breast smoked with applewood and confit leg. Smoking was a no-brainer, but I am reserving confit for another time as it seemed like more work than I was willing to put in at this point, especially considering this was to be the first duck I've ever cooked.
Freshly thawed in water over about 24 hours, I prepared for my first duck breakdown. I'd seen enough chickens and other poultry done on TV cooking shows before, and done a few chickens myself, so it didn't seem like too difficult a task. What I mainly remember is to use a sharp knife (preferably a boning knife, but all I had was a 10" chefs knife...) and let gravity work to your advantage.
My plan was to lightly smoke everything with applewood, then give the breasts a quick pan searing and roast the legs, wings and carcass.
Everything got a light smoking with about 1/2 a chimney of charcoal to keep the temp as low as possible while still getting the smoke I needed. It took about 20 minutes for my chips to give their all, which was jut about perfect. I had a hot saute pan waiting with a little butter in it (I had scored the breasts before going on the smoker), then seared them for about 3 minutes per side. Next time, I'll stick closer to 2 minutes as the duck was a bit more done than I'd hoped - closer to medium than medium-rare. Use a lid - the combination of hot butter and duck fat, while delicious, makes for impressive splattering. The breasts then took a 5 minute rest on the cutting board before serving. The fuzzy photo below is from all the steam coming off, but it was funny to me as it looked like some glamour shots filter.
Legs and wings went into a 425 oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the skin, then about another hour at 350 to finish. The temperature drop is a good point to drain some of the rendered fat off.
The carcass and neck then went into a pot with some aromatics for 4 or 5 hours and I have about 2 quarts of homemade duck stock, plus about 1.5 cups of duck fat that I drained off at various points during the whole process to use in some future application.
I think duck gets a bad shake as being a fatty bird. It is, but it's all on the surface. Much of it was rendered off during the cooking process. The fat left on the breasts can easily be pulled away, but you should try at least one or two bites of the breast with a little fat and crispy skin left on......fantastic. I think leaving the duck sans sauce is the best way to go to. I couldn't find one recipe in any of my cookbooks or cooking mags that didn't have some elaborate sauce to it. Aside from the smoking, I let the duck speak for itself.
During the whole process, I kept flashing back to the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he and Daffy are doing the whole "duck season...rabbit season..." thing. I kept replaying the part where they're both reading off the names of various recipes Elmer Fudd should try.
Freshly thawed in water over about 24 hours, I prepared for my first duck breakdown. I'd seen enough chickens and other poultry done on TV cooking shows before, and done a few chickens myself, so it didn't seem like too difficult a task. What I mainly remember is to use a sharp knife (preferably a boning knife, but all I had was a 10" chefs knife...) and let gravity work to your advantage.
My plan was to lightly smoke everything with applewood, then give the breasts a quick pan searing and roast the legs, wings and carcass.
Everything got a light smoking with about 1/2 a chimney of charcoal to keep the temp as low as possible while still getting the smoke I needed. It took about 20 minutes for my chips to give their all, which was jut about perfect. I had a hot saute pan waiting with a little butter in it (I had scored the breasts before going on the smoker), then seared them for about 3 minutes per side. Next time, I'll stick closer to 2 minutes as the duck was a bit more done than I'd hoped - closer to medium than medium-rare. Use a lid - the combination of hot butter and duck fat, while delicious, makes for impressive splattering. The breasts then took a 5 minute rest on the cutting board before serving. The fuzzy photo below is from all the steam coming off, but it was funny to me as it looked like some glamour shots filter.
Legs and wings went into a 425 oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the skin, then about another hour at 350 to finish. The temperature drop is a good point to drain some of the rendered fat off.
