Duck advice

Also, and my tip to everyone to COOK AT ALL COSTS was cassoulet. I'd always thought it would be difficult, but buouyed by the purchase of a half-price duck from the supermarket...

First brown a packet of sausages cut into chunks (I used cheap butchers sausages, 99p cheap) and transfer them to a big pot. Remove the legs from the duck and save them for something else (such as the confit above), then butcher it. Cut the breasts into thinnish strips, and remove as much other meat as you can. Add the duck meat to the pot, along with a packet of bacon (again, I just used cheap 99p stuff) sliced the same sort of thickness as the duck. Add two cans of beans (I used one can of butter beans and one can of mixed beans), a clove-studded onion, and some herbs (rosemary, oregano and a couple of bay leaves). I put in some duck skin (the skin off the breasts and the parsons nose) and both wings to add flavour. Add enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, put the lid on and simmer quite hard for an hour. Turn down, and put on a slow simmer for 7 or 8 hours, stirring now and again. Remove the bits of skin and the wings, the bay leaves and the onion. Add a chopped, peeled tomato and simmer for another 30 mins. Eat with bread. PRAISE GOD FOR MAKING FOOD SO NUMMY.

-- aldo_cowpat (aldo...), September 12th, 2005 3:59 PM.

Dear god a xpost on ILC

I jointed instead of roasted the last duck I bought, deboned the breasts, steamed them skin-side down for 30 minutes to render out some of the fat, then rubbed them with 5-spice powder and seared them in a hot skillet to crisp up the skin. I've got the legs in the freezer to confit later.

If you want to just roast it, pull the large chunk of fat out of the body cavity and trim the excess skin off from the neck and tail area (render these for the fat), rinse it off and dry it thoroughly, even let it set uncovered overnight in the fridge to really get the skin dry (this lets the skin get beautifully crispy). Stab through the skin all over with a sharp pointy paring knife so the fat can leach out. Cut the wingtips off at the joint. Preheat the oven to 425 F. Put the duck breast side up on a rack in a roasting pan with a scant 1/2" of water in it. Season the bird if you like; I like to roast duck and goose plain. Put the bird in the hot oven, leave it at 425 F for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 325 F and roast for 15 min/lb for an unstuffed bird. Don't bother with basting or fussing with it. At the end of the time, check it. The skin should be crisp and brown and the legs should be fairly easy to wiggle. Take it out of the oven and let it rest for 10-15 minutes before you cut into it. Duck and goose don't have to be well-done, as chicken does. It's better if the juices are still a bit pink.

I don't know if this cassoulet thing sounds like something I would like? Any type of beans would do? And to make it, I would only save the legs, every other bit of meat would go in?

I will definitely make a stock with the remnants of the duck, planned on a risotto actually!

I had no idea that after cleaning up the duck you would have to let it dry out so thoroughly if you want to roast it in some manner, so maybe tomorrow night isn't best if I decide to do one of the whole duck recipes...hmmm. Maybe I will try the cassoulet after all but I am confused about how the flavors interact together. I think I'm just not really sure what duck tastes like. Is it ok to ditch out the sausages on the recipe?

This seems like so many questions, when you confit the legs, do you just do it whole or should you debone them first? I've seen one webpage saying one thing and one saying the other so I figure I'll ask here which is preferable. I'd think leaving them whole would be a better idea.

As to the taste of duck - nothing at all like chicken or turkey. It's all dark meat, very rich. Wild duck can be fishy (which I happen to like), but you don't get that with the typical farmed duck from the market.

I can recommend steaming the breasts then sauteing for maximal skin crispiness. The meat stayed nice and moist too.

Oh another concern re: roasting, will it really smell and/or smoke up very badly because of all the fat rendering? I have absolutely no ventilation in my apt (seriously--I can't even open the front windows). I've had some issues with even something as minimal as bacon really smoking out my apt (setting off alarms, everything smells of bacon for a couple days, etc). When I did an ILC search on "duck" I noticed someone--Tep?--bringing this up as a possible issue with roasting.

Haha maybe I should just not step outside of my "already butchered up animals" zone.

Ten minutes with the hair dryer works wonders to dry out the skin. Even quicker and crispier is to dip the duck in a wok of hot oil, a minute on one side and a minute on the other, but that's kind of a hassle unless you're deep-frying other things anyway.

Cassoulet isn't exactly a quick alternative to roasting. Aldo calls for 8 hours of simmering; my friend Bryan slow-cooks his for four days. Also, if you do it, I can't imagine why you'd want to skip the sausages -- it's typically made with garlicky garlicky ones (kielbasa works), so you'd want to add that flavor back in somehow.

xpost: Roasting won't smoke unless the fat drips onto the oven floor. That Peking recipe suggests a big pan of water underneath to catch the drippings, which is a good idea. The place is going to smell like roast duck though.

Doesn't your man have some sort of military-grade knife skills you can impose upon? Ducks don't even fight back.

Re: Skipping the sausages: I generally only keep a few types of sausages around, if any at all, and they don't seem the type of sausages that would be complimentary to the dish (chorizo and andouille, occasionally hot italian). Main "speed" difference between the cassoulet v roasting seemed to be that I wouldn't really have to dry the thing out thoroughly before doing it. I don't have the technology in my house to slow roast for 4 days or even 8 hours though at the moment, though, at least not on a weekday, so I'm going to have to put that particular experiment off I guess :\

I think I will try Jaq's breast idea for my first attempt at this, see how it goes, and then attempt cassoulet some later weekend if all goes ok...

Problem: I am a total n00b to this but why do I still smell like duck??? I feel like the rendered fat has stuck to my hands worse than tobacco could, even. Has anyone else had this issue or am I imagining things? It didn't really seem to smell that strong while I was working in the kitchen.

I've never noticed the smell sticking so much. To make sure it's not on your hands, use some alcohol-based hand sanitizer to cut any grease, then rub your hands on something stainless steel (I don't know why this works!!!). I don't think duck is like garlic where the smell molecules take up residence in your lungs and bloodstream.

So I bought two ducks over the holidays while they were cheap ($1.18/lb). After I broke them down to component parts, I made stock from the carcass (still need to reduce it more) and confited the leg quarters. Those came out of the oven this morning and I ate a few slivers of meat while pulling it off the bone -- oh my god! This is the first time I've ever eaten duck, and the confit at least is fantastic.

So I have duck breasts, and in a separate bag I have the breast tenderloins, which basically just fell off of the breasts while I was busting up the ducks. What are some of everyone's favorite recipes?

I have some really good dried cherries that I'm thinking would be good with the duck somehow. My wife doesn't like cherries, but then again she doesn't like the dark meat of any bird, so I'll probably just be cooking for myself.

I love Nigel Slater's duck breasts at the bottom of this article, though I only put watercress, cilantro, and orange in the salad.

I could have sworn that Tep had some big entry on making use of a whole duck, but I can't seem to find it now.

Anyone have a recipe (or at least temp+time) for roasting duck parts? I.e., a whole duck, jointed..