Serving a duck many ways

[kuan]

Sort of an Iron Chef question.  How many ways can you serve a duck?  Say you have a duck and you want to prepare it as many ways as you can.  What would you do?

I have

1)  Consomme

2)  Thigh rilette ravioli

3)  Braised leg

4)  Seared breast

What else?

 

[chrisbelgium]

A confit in duck fat of the legs!

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

 

[kyheirloomer]

You got something against the liver, Kuan?

 

[kuan]

It's just a typical grocery store duck with tiny livers.  Are the livers any good?  Maybe an amuse? 

Chris I already have rillette with the thighs.

 

[beestings]

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)

 

[kuan]

Sorry I should have been more clear.  I want to see if I can do multiple preparations out of one duck.  Not how many ways I can prepare duck.  So from just one duck I'd like to get maybe six courses.

 

[gobblygook]

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

 

[kyheirloomer]

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.

 

[boar_d_laze]

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!

 

[kuan]

At the Asian grocer you can get confucian style whole duck.  I've never used the insides though but it'd be interesting to see how the liver cooks up.  I forgot the wings.  And the neck skin is a good idea with scrapmeat is a good idea.

 

[boar_d_laze]

Hey Kuan,

You wrote,

At the Asian grocer you can get confucian style whole duck.

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

BDL 
 

 

[cheflayne]

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

 

[kuan]

BDL, that's duck which is raised humanely and vegetarian fed.  Slaughtered and sold whole so every part is used.  This is a central to Confucian thought, that nothing should be slaughtered without a good reason, and once slaughtered, it should be prepared such that there is as little as possible is wasted.

 

[kyheirloomer]

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