Serving a duck many ways

A confit in duck fat of the legs!

Do make consommé of duck as you mentioned, it's delicous.

 

You got something against the liver, Kuan?

 

How about in a marinade- or smoked - or even pate/terrine dishes. There's galantined as well(poached in stock with a forcemeat wrapped in muslin)

 

Interestingly enough, a recent "Cook Like an Iron Chef" had duck as their secret ingredient.  He used both a skinless boneless breast and what appeared to be an "airline breast" with skin.  He made "dirty kenoa" using the liver.  He also rendered the duck fat to create an aoli.  He did a confeit, but then mentioned it would take 4-6 hours, which would seem to violate the rules of "iron chef" /img/vbsmilies/smilies//smile.gif.  Of course, there were some duck cracklins fried off in duck fat as well.

You could serve the eyeballs and call it "speckled caviar" and start a new food revolution /img/vbsmilies/smilies//smile.gif

 

Maybe it's me, Kuan, but I thought you were perfectly clear. Or perhaps it's just because I often think in the same terms; like making a total meal out of chicken.

A supermarket duck limits some of the possibilities, unfortunately.

For instance, if you have it, the neck skin makes a great casing for various sausages. Keeping with your theme, I'd likely do something that utilizes all the "scrap" meat on the carcass: the oysters, and the bits and pieces along the back, etc.

But, most of the time, you won't have the neck, as they don't seem to package it as they do with chickens. Similarly, you don't get the heads, nor the feet.

 

A duck liver is large.  It was removed before the duck was packed.  I love to saute the duck liver to just rare, flame it off in cognac, slice it thin, and serve it with  toast. 

It's hard to compete with the Chinese when it comes to creative ways to eat a duck.

 "Duck Three Ways" (as served at Duck House Restaurant in Monterey Park) is a wonderful thing:  

1.  Peking duck

2.  Duck soup (carcass only, no consomme); and

3.  Duck salad with fresh bean sprouts

in that order. 

Peking duck done right is always good, and they (she, really) does a job which goes beyond excellent and into sublime.  I can't come close to duplicating it.

Duck tongues are good.  You see them in dim sum restaurants, usually partnered with some sort of smoked fish or heel.  They have a piece of cartilage in them and you have to suck/scrape the meat off it -- assisted only by chopsticks.

Duck feet, steamed then braised aren't that uncommon at dim sum houses.  Red cooked ecues, at either dium sum or (Chinese) barbecues.  Some places do duck web as a stand alone -- it's usually fried.

I've posted this picture of duck heads before:



It was taken at Yunnan 168, a Yunnan (duh) style restaurant in Temple City (in the SGV).  One of the draws of Yunnan eating is a plate of assorted deli (3 for $3.99) and these duckheads were one of the choices on that day.  3 to a serving. 

Anyone else familiar with Yunnan (Hunan) style cooking?  I'm deeply in love with eating it, but haven't tried doing any cooking.   

BDL

PS.  Great idea and good thread!

 

Hey Kuan,

You wrote,

What's "Confucian style?"  I've never seen the term before.

BDL 
 

 

Confit the gizzards and use for a salad. You mentioned seared breast, you could do that with half and smoke the other half.

 

Sort of like pig in the Southern hills, where we use everything but the oink. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/thumb.gif