whole duck

Chef in the Making

I need assistance on how to cook a whole duck on the egg

thanks

BENTE

here's one idea::


Duck, Whole, Asian Duck Confit W/Roasted Duck Breast & Wasabi Sauce

Nature Boy (and others interested), here's an article from this Wednesday's New York Times that talks about preparing duck in an Asian style. I thought this would be right up your alley. I think it sounds oh so good.


INGREDIENTS:
1 4-5 Lbs Duck
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups duck fat, or a bit more
10 nickel-size slices ginger
3 cloves
5 star anise
3 sprigs thyme
1 Tbs plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 small bunch watercress, stems removed
1 Tbs wasabi powder
3/4 cup duck or chicken stock
2 tsp soy sauce.



1 January 19, 2000 Wednesday
2 THE CHEF: The Most Succulent --- This is the third of eight columns by Tadashi Ono, the chef at Sono in
3 Dining In, Dining Out/Style Desk; Section F; Page 1, Column 2 c. 2000 New York Times Company
4 By Tadashi Ono
Directions:
1 ONE of the French dishes that have always amazed me is duck confit. I loved it as soon as I first tasted it, in 1988 when I came to work at La Caravelle as a saucier. At my previous restaurant job the cooking was very high-end nouvelle, and I had never encountered anything as rustic as these slow-cooked duck legs. They were a revelation -- how could duck be so tender and crisp at the same time, and so wonderfully flavored, with nothing to it but meat?
2 Not long after that first taste I started trying to find a way to use the same concept in a dish with Asian flavors.
3 Duck, of course, is common in several Asian cuisines, but there is no tradition I know of where it is cooked like confit. The traditional French method of simmering duck legs in rendered fat tenderizes them. My method is not traditional, but it is easy -- you can almost ignore the bird as it simmers -- and after the duck has been refrigerated for a day, you can crisp the skin right before serving.
4 My technique differs from the classic French method, which calls for curing the meat in salt and spices like thyme and allspice for a day or more before cooking it. The salt cure preserves the duck, but I dispense with that step. The French idea is that the salting draws out unnecessary water, which is replaced first by salt and later by fat. But I think it also takes out some of the juices, and therefore some of the duck's natural flavor.
5 Instead, I simply season the duck, add the spices to the fat and cook it, which gives the meat plenty of flavor. Two of the classic French seasonings for confit, thyme and cloves, work perfectly in my Asian-oriented version. To those, I add two ingredients identified with Asian cooking, star anise and ginger. The ginger becomes the dominant flavor and really gives the confit spirit.
6 Many chefs use confited legs in one dish and the duck's breast in another, but I combine them. For one thing, it's much easier to buy a whole bird than parts. I prefer an ordinary Pekin duck for this dish, because more expensive ducks are no more flavorful in confit. You can use the fat and excess skin from the duck to make your own fat for the confit. Just combine them in a saucepan with a tablespoon or two of water to keep them from burning, and cook over low heat until the fat is mostly liquid, with a few pieces of skin floating in it. (Or you can buy duck fat at some markets.)
7 I bake the confit in a covered saucepan, because it's very easy to regulate oven heat. From that point on, the legs must be handled gently. If you refrigerate them in the fat, let them come to room temperature before reheating, so that the fat softens and the meat can be removed without falling apart.
8 The breast is already tender, and is best served medium-rare, so it doesn't make sense to confit it. I simply roast it on the bone, as I cook all my meat, so that it stays juicy. Since the breast takes only a few minutes to cook, the timing with the reheated confit is nearly perfect.
9 To make the Asian theme of this dish more complex, I create a quick sauce based on wasabi and watercress. The watercress mimics the wasabi flavor and some of the same heat, and their colors also match. Fresh wasabi is hard to find and very expensive; wasabi powder works fine. A touch of soy sauce completes the sauce, which cuts through the richness of the duck while intensifying its flavor.
10 We serve the duck with buckwheat spatzle, but any fresh egg noodles, tossed with a little butter, would be a lovely side dish.
11 Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Cut legs off duck. Cut off second and third joints of wings. Cut breast with its ribs off backbone. Cover, and place in refrigerator. (Discard wing tips and backbone, or use for stock.) Salt legs well, and put in a saucepan with duck fat, ginger, cloves, star anise and thyme. Bring to a boil. Make sure meat is submerged in fat (add more if necessary), then cover pan with foil and bake 4 to 5 hours, or until meat offers almost no resistance when pierced with a thin-bladed knife or skewer. Cool, then refrigerate, fat and all, for at least a day. Bring to room temperature before proceeding.
12 Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Score skin of breast in a crosshatch pattern at 1/4-inch intervals, and season well with salt and pepper. Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in an ovenproof skillet over high heat and wait a minute, then brown duck on skin side for about 2 minutes, moving it occasionally so that it doesn't stick. Transfer to oven. Roast, skin side up, for about 15 minutes, or until meat is medium-rare (an instant-read thermometer will register about 130 degrees). Keep warm.
13 While breast is roasting, make sauce: Blanch watercress in boiling salted water to cover for about 30 seconds. Drain, rinse in cold water and squeeze dry. Place in a blender with salt, pepper, wasabi, stock, soy sauce and remaining oil, and puree until smooth. Taste, and adjust seasoning -- it should be quite hot. Transfer to a small saucepan, and warm very gently; do not allow to boil.
14 Remove the legs from the fat, and brown the skin under the broiler or in a skillet over medium-high heat, less than 5 minutes. Cut the breasts off the bone, and slice thin. Arrange on a plate with some of the confit, and spoon the wasabi sauce around.


Yield: 2 to 4 servings.

Recipe Type
Main Dish, Poultry

Recipe Source
Source: BGE Forum, Cornfed, 01/21/00

JLOCKHART29

Never done a tame one but do wild ones all often. I like a simple roasted duck indirect at 275-300 with breast temp of 150-155. There will still be some red in it but wild duck is very lean and drys out if cooked to long IMO. Make a simple rub of equal parts salt,cummin,ginger,peprica,garlic pepper and couple pinches rubed sage. Red pepper to taste. Rub with EVOO b4 coating with the rub. Stuff cavity with 1/2 apple quartered.

Little Steven

Classic French confit is awesome on the egg too. Salt, juniper berries, garlic and pepper by the same method.

Quick grill after the confit.

Steve

Pyro

Duck confit has to be tasted to be understood. However, chicken confit can reasonably be substituted Here is Emeril's recipe for chicken confit. I favor a curing time of 24 to 48 hours longer then specified, but then I am a nut who takes bottom round or brisket and corns his own beef. It really is better than that nasty pink stuff you buy at the grocery market, but does take 10 days to two weeks to accomplish.


Chicken Confit
Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2005
Show: Emeril Live
Episode: Private Lessons


4 chicken leg portions with thighs attached, excess fat trimmed and reserved (about 2 pounds total)
1 tablespoon plus 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
10 garlic cloves
4 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon table salt
4 cups olive oil
Lay the leg portions on a platter, skin side down. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the kosher salt and black pepper. Place the garlic cloves, bay leaves, and sprigs of thyme on each of 2 leg portions. Lay the remaining 2 leg portions, flesh to flesh, on top. Put the reserved fat from the chicken in the bottom of a glass or plastic container. Top with the sandwiched leg portions. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt. Cover and refrigerate for 12 hours.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator. Remove the garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and chicken fat and reserve. Rinse the chicken with cool water, rubbing off some of the salt and pepper. Pat dry with paper towels.

Put the reserved garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and chicken fat in the bottom of an enameled cast iron pot. Sprinkle evenly with the peppercorns and salt. Lay the chicken on top, skin side down. Add the olive oil. Cover and bake for 12 to 14 hours, or until the meat pulls away from the bone.

Remove the chicken from the fat. Strain the fat and reserve. Pick the meat from the bones and place it in a stoneware container. Cover the meat with some of the strained fat so that there is a 1/4-inch layer of fat on top. The chicken confit can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

If you do not have enough chicken fat to fill the container, then mix what you have with lard. Yes, I said lard and the food police would want to strike me dead. Lard is one of the most versatile and favorable fats available to us. Pie crust made with lard taste better than any other, French fries cooked in lard are preferable to all the 'healthy' fats we use today remember the original MacDonald’s fries?) and always remember, "pork fat rules!"


The excess oil can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator and used like butter for cooking. The tinge of chicken taste in the oil is wonderful and I use the oil to roast potatoes, cook green beans, and pan-fry veal.

Chef in the Making

Thanks to all of you for the recipes. They all look good so i guess i will need to buy more duck to try them all

Haggis

As you say, wild duck is leaner and drier than farmed duck. That changes the cooking parameters but also means that the farmed duck needs a pan beneath it to catch what can be a significant quantity of fat.

EmandM'sDad

You didn't run over one of those crossing Ocean Pines Parkway, did you?? :laugh:

Mike

Chef in the Making

No but beleive me I have thought about. The only reason I have not is because they have made it a hanging offense .

ChitownBBQ

I have made many, many ducks for people that swear they don't like duck, or that duck is too greasy...

I've usually eaten the emergency chicken I cooked at the same time because the duck was inhaled...

Duck is both lean and oily. The fat & skin have a heavy, oily fat that can ruin a dish if it gets into it. The meat itself has almost no intra-muscular fat and can dry out if over-cooked.

My favorite is 'crispy duck' where it is plunged into an extremely hot wok of oil - more oil, you ask? Yes - as long as the oil is very hot, it will pull the oil out of the duck & give you a nice crispy skin.

Now, since I don't have a hot enough deep fryer or big enough wok to pull this off safely, I looked for other methods and my Spanek Verical Roasters came to the rescue. Don't worry if you can't find 'Spanek', those were only from old, late-night infomercials. Luckily, BGE sells their 'vertical roasters' - same thing.

At any rate, season the skin however makes you happiest - I use rosemary & sage (to bring out the game taste) and my regular BBQ rub. HOT fire. 400 works. Make sure you have the room to stand it upright and have a drip pan below it - liquid in the drip pan will help the oil not smoke & burn to the pan.

Usually somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour, the leg/thigh quarter will pull easily down from the body, if not come off in your hand.

It's done..