Duck Season! (Cooking Advice, Please...)

[Jester]

Amusing turn of events.

As I may have noted in the OP, this whole thing is for a barbecue cookoff. One that was originally scheduled for a few weeks ago, but was rescheduled for this Sunday.

Today, after I got home, and after I had picked up the two main ingredients for my dish, the ducks and the cheese--which also happen to be the two most EXPENSIVE ingredients--my phone rings. It's the lady running the cookoff.

"Hi, Jester. Just wanted to catch you before you bought your groceries for Sunday."

Uh oh.

WHY?

It turns out that so many people had already bought their groceries and/or cooked their dishes for the last one before it got cancelled that a lot of them were not going to participate in this one. They all took it in stride, as it is a fundraiser for a worthy cause, and either shared their dishes with friends, brought it into church, fed their coworkers, whatever.

In any case, the organizers, faced with a cookoff with few cooks, decided to make it a cookOUT rather than a cookOFF. Anyone who wanted to participate could still do so. And there would be no entry fee. No prizes either, as the competitive element has been removed. And they would charge people who wanted to eat a nominal fee per plate.

Well then. Surprisingly, both to me and her, this did not bother me. No competitive element? Sure, I don't get to win or place, but this also removes a lot of the stress I normally have for such events. Now I am just cooking for people for the pure love of it, AND to raise money for a worthy cause, AND to experiment with some stuff I've been thinking about for a while, AND to see if a recipe I came up with in my head over the last month really is as good as I think it is.

I told her that since I had already bought the expensive stuff, and since I enjoyed feeding people, that I would still be coming with my food. As I told her, I've been working on this recipe for a while now, and damn it, I want to see what people think of it.

What I didn't tell her was that I doubted I could return the ducks and/or the cheese. I also didn't tell her that this event was perfect for me because this Sunday my NFL team has a bye, so isn't playing. So, it's a cookoff without the usual stress or competition, so I am pretty stoked.

Now I just have to stress about cooking the duck, making a couple sauces, shredding a bunch of cheese, getting everything set up on time, praying the weather doesn't fuck me over (this is an outdoor event), trying to find someone to loan me a table, seeing if my bar will let me borrow our folding canopy, and figuring if I can fill a cooler with all the food I'll need PLUS cold beer and ice to refresh myself with. FUN!

(Yes, I really DO enjoy these events, surprisingly!)

Dude, it is a FATTY BIRD, I repeat FATTY as in several cups of fat distilled out of a 6 pound bird ....... *CUPS* of fat, not tablespoons.

I understand that. I get that. But since when did bacon EVER make anything worse? LOL! (If it makes you happier, I am going to cook one bird at a time, and if the first one doesn't come out the way I want it, I am going to adjust my cooking of the second bird appropriately.)

Then what you are doing is marinading or macerating not brining. Brining is for dry meats with inadequate fat so the meat doesn't dry out.

Noted.

And yes IMHO duck and goose fat is worlds better for cooking than bacon fat. Bacon fat can end up oversalting flavorwise. The smokey can overwhelm delicate flavors. Duck and goose add richness. It will freeze nicely. You can freeze it in little blobs, in an icecube tray or in larger tubs if you get lots of fat.

I am not known for cooking delicate things, but even I wouldn't use bacon fat to cook something delicate. And yes, I can see how bacon fat could oversalt something.

And if you have no plans for the skin, you can snack on it =)

We'll see how the skin turns out. If it works for what I am gunning for, great! It stays in the dish. And if it doesn't, great! It's a snack for the cook!

I've actually done stuff like that before. When my friend Cookie and I were collaborating on a white seafood chili, we cooked the white beans with bacon steeped in the pot, and afterwards, pulled the bacon out (we had other pork for the actual chili). And...we snacked on it. And....it was awesome. One of the best snacks I've ever had.

[42_42_42]

Duck is notorious for being greasy. I totally get what you are trying to do with the bacon. However, in this case, trust those of us who have cooked duck in the past. Cook up the bacon separately and add to the nachos.

To increase the smokey flavor of the duck, I suggest using a smoked sea salt. A little goes a looong way in adding a lot of smokey flavor. Use this when seasoning the cooked meat or in constructing your barbecue sauce.

Absolutely pierce the heck out of the skin before cooking to help that liquid gold that is duck fat render out. And omigod save that stuff. I'm serious when I say liquid gold!

As for the bbq sauce, both ancho and chipotles in adobo would be great additions, especially if you can get the dried anchos and toast them and grind into powder yourself. These would add another layer of smokeyness.

Personally, I think constructing your own sauce would be better.

I'd mince a shallot and a few cloves of garlic and saute until softened in some of the rendered duck fat mixed with rendered bacon fat (from cooking the bacon separately). Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste and cook for just a minute or two longer. Then remove from heat and mix in Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, ancho powder, a couple of minced chipotles with a few tsp of the adobo, a tsp of the smoked salt and about a tbsp of molasses. I'm thinking you want a consistency that will be good for coating all the meat, but not to make it too saucy. You'd have to play with the proportions a bit. You could always thin with a splash of hard cider, if needed.

Curious, what cheese are you putting on this? I'm guessing either a smoked gouda or a manchengo?

ps - chopped green onion along with the bacon to garnish. definitely.

[Jester]

Never poke or cut the skin, it lets the juices out and dries out the bird.

Absolutely pierce the heck out of the skin before cooking to help that liquid gold that is duck fat render out.

Hmmm...we seem to have a difference of opinion here....

Duck is notorious for being greasy. I totally get what you are trying to do with the bacon. However, in this case, trust those of us who have cooked duck in the past.

I appreciate your opinion, but I plan on slow roasting the duck on a rack over a drip pan, so that the drippings do not stay in the duck and make it greasy. I also plan on cooking one duck before the other one, perhaps a day ahead of time, as a tester, as I said.

To increase the smokey flavor of the duck, I suggest using a smoked sea salt. A little goes a looong way in adding a lot of smokey flavor. Use this when seasoning the cooked meat or in constructing your barbecue sauce.

Interesting ideas. I'll look into seeing if any of the markets down here have it.

As for the bbq sauce, both ancho and chipotles in adobo would be great additions, especially if you can get the dried anchos and toast them and grind into powder yourself. These would add another layer of smokeyness.

I have worked with both anchos and chipotles in the past, and for this, I think I am going to lean towards an already-made bbq sauce as a base, probably something sweet, and add spice to it; towards that, I had planned on using chipotles in adobo sauce, along with some other spices.

Personally, I think constructing your own sauce would be better.

You are probably right, but I have limited time this week, and am already roasting the ducks, pulling the ducks, making the salsa verde, making the cilantro lime creme fraiche, and a few other things that are going to be loads of fun. So I am going to take a slight shortcut with the bbq sauce. I don't think I'll be losing quality by doing this, as I have never made a bbq sauce, and I think using a pre-existing one as a base is a smart way to start.

I also have the painful experience of my wing sauce, which twice I tried to make from scratch, rather than starting with a pre-existing hot sauce and building on it. Twice my wing sauce was less than impressive.

Curious, what cheese are you putting on this? I'm guessing either a smoked gouda or a manchengo?

And the survey says you're way off.

This whole recipe got started as an idea I had during Brewfest last month, when I attended a beer and cheese pairing and tasting. And when I tried one of those cheese, literally the words "duck nachos" burst into my brain and out of my mouth. The cheese that did this? A beautiful white cheddar. I'll get the details on it later, as I can't remember it's exact name/origin. But it is amazing, and I am not normally a huge fan of cheddar. But this stuff rocks the house!

ps - chopped green onion along with the bacon to garnish. definitely.

Originally I had thought of making some smoked green onions for this, but I am leaning towards omitting them. Sometimes too many garnishes can destroy a dish, and I think on this one, leaving some things simple is the way to go.

My current plan (which has changed almost every day since this whole thing started) is blue corn tortilla chips, the white cheddar cheese mentioned above, pulled bbq duck tossed in the spicy bbq sauce I'll make, tomatillo serrano salsa verde, and cilantro lime creme fraiche. Overall, I don't think that sounds too awful.

[dboyes]

Note that duck fat has a limited storage time, even frozen. It will turn rancid after about 2 months in the freezer, so be sure to date it (and discard it after it passes that date).

One especially yummy glaze for BBQ duck:

small jar of apricot jam (8 oz, with the crushed fruit in it if you can get it. Pohlaner's apricot spreadable fruit is awesome with this).

Grated orange zest from a medium orange. Get only the orange part, not the white pith beneath it (that's bitter). Can use 1/2 cup orange juice (with pulp is best) if you can't get fresh oranges.

Tablespoon of sriracha (or any Asian chili sauce; start with a little and add to taste -- that stuff can be lethal).

Cracked black pepper (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
1 Tbsp Sesame seeds (toasted in the oven until they pop and/or smell good)
Cornstarch (very small amount -- add by quarter tsp amounts until the consistency is a smooth custard-like semi-liquid. Think partially set-up Jello with bits of apricot in it.

Wait till the duck is mostly roasted/broiled, and about 15 minutes before the projected end time, brush the above sauce on the duck and repeat about every 5 minutes after that point.
The duck will look dark orange, almost lacquered, and when you pull the meat, it will have a fantastic scent and taste. Heat the extra sauce in the microwave for 1-1.5 minutes (to kill bacteria) and serve it with the duck.

Another good one (works for chicken/turkey too) if you really want the bacon element:

1 packet onion soup mix
1 small bottle Catalina salad dressing (i think 8oz is the smallest)
1 small can crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 small can whole-berry cranberry sauce
4 strips of raw bacon (streaky bacon for our UK friends)
Vegetable oil
salt
pepper


Mix the pineapple, onion soup, salad dressing and cranberry sauce ingredients in a bowl. Take the duck and wash it, removing any obvious feather remnants, etc. Slit the skin in stripes (4-5 cuts across the breast and back of the duck). Tuck the bacon strips into the slits. Fill the duck body with the mixed pineapple/cranberry/etc mixture.

Move the duck to a roasting pan. Put some vegetable oil on a paper towel and lightly coat the duck with it. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the surface of the duck

Roast at 300-325 for about 30-35 min/pound of duck you have. If you want really crispy duck skin, for the last 10 minutes put it under the broiler about 4-6" from the heat. This produces a marvelously scented and moist duck. The bacon and pineapple/cranberry are awesome.

[wolfie]

My current plan (which has changed almost every day since this whole thing started) is blue corn tortilla chips, the white cheddar cheese mentioned above, pulled bbq duck tossed in the spicy bbq sauce I'll make, tomatillo serrano salsa verde, and cilantro lime creme fraiche.

How can you know when you're buying them whether you're getting genuine blue corn tortilla chips (natural acid/base indicator in the corn turns blue when the lime makes the corn mush go alkaline) or fake ones (blue food colouring added)?

Bit of trivia - with real blue corn, one nutrient (long time ago, I saw a PBS special - soy was another food where the traditional processing made a nutrient usable) was "locked up" until the corn was made alkaline, and the colour change showed when it was "unlocked".

[AccountingDrone]

Hm, I always thought that they were made of blue corn ...

The chips we get are made with Hopi Blue flint corn.

[Jester]

How can you know when you're buying them whether you're getting genuine blue corn tortilla chips (natural acid/base indicator in the corn turns blue when the lime makes the corn mush go alkaline) or fake ones (blue food colouring added)?

How can I tell?

Well...I can't. I am going by taste, as I use a brand I am rather fond of. And, to be honest, here in the Keys, we have very limited choices for blue corn tortilla chips, unlike back home in Arizona. While I have bought almost everything else, I have not yet bought the chips, and am starting to consider using tortillas instead. But will probably stick with the chips.

Dboyes, thanks for the heads up on the duck fat and the recipes. I doubt I'll use them this time as they are in a bit of a different direction from what I am aiming for, but I will file them away for another time, certainly.

[Barracuda]

Several things--To make the duck skin crispy, you could try a trick I saw on a cooking show. Inflate the skin. That's right, inflate it. There are little pumps or you could use a turkey baster poked through the hole in the neck, but inflating the skin removes it from contact with the meat, helps it cook better and makes the skin crispier. Another trick I saw was to slather a thin layer of butter underneath the skin directly on the meat. This adds flavor and also helps keep the bird from drying out. As far as the BBQ sauce goes, remember, duck goes well with sweet flavors, which is why you see Duck a L'Orange and not Chicken a L'Orange. For example, a classic German recipe is roasted duck with apple cider jous and sweet braised red cabbage. So I would go with a sweeter, tarter BBQ sauce for accompaniment, perhaps "St. Louis Style" or "Kansas City" style.

[Jester]

For this application, I am not too concerned about getting the duck skin crispy. I know you never hear that, but I'm in this for tender meat to put on upscale nachos and wow people at a barbecue cookout. If I get crispy duck skin, that is a bonus that I may incorporate (or simply snack on), but it is not high on my priority list.

As for the barbecue sauce, I am going to zip up an already tasty and sweet bbq sauce. I think I am going to take Sweet Baby Ray's, which is awesome as it is, and incorporate some chipotle, some adobo, and perhaps a few other things, maybe some red or cayenne pepper. Hell, may even incorporate some allspice as well. It's all about experimentation this time, as I am working with things I have never worked with before (chipotles obviously not being among them), and doing things I've never done before.

[Jester]

Well, shit.

The cookout has been cancelled.

I guess I should have seen this coming. First it was scheduled for a weekend in late September, but then rescheduled, which is unusual for a cookoff, then a few days ago, it was reclassified as a cookout rather than a cookoff (no competition, just whoever wants to feed people for a worthy cause, knock yourself out), and now the whole thing is kaput. It was part of a larger charity fundraiser that involved a bocce tournament, and when they cancelled the tourney, the dominoes just fell.

So here I am, sitting on two whole ducks, a couple pounds of high end cheese, and a whole bunch of other groceries.

Now, the duck and the bacon I can stick back in the freezer, I suppose. The non-perishables, such as the canned goods and the barbecue sauce, no worries there. But I have two pounds of tomatilloes, a whole bunch of serrano and jalapeno peppers, cilantro, onions, garlic, limes, buttermilk, heavy cream, etc. Just what the flying HELL am I supposed to do with all this stuff? In all my years of doing these things, I have never seen anything so screwy and bizarre, and I don't think I'll be participating in any future events that these same people run. I don't think I can afford it, actually!

Don't mind me, I am just venting. The night actually got much worse after I found out about this cancellation, which in the grand scheme of things is minor, though of course very irritating and inconvenient. Because after I got that news, I called my niece Dragon to see what the latest was, and the latest was her boyfriend had dumped her, and was apparently talking all this shit behind her back. This really surprised her, and me too, as he seemed like such a cool guy. But now of course Dragon is inconsolable, hates life, hates people, yada yada yada. Any of us who have been teenagers and/or in love know the routine. That didn't make it any less painful for me to listen to her going through all this and knowing that nothing I said would really make a shit's worth of difference. She will recover, I know (even if she doesn't know), but still, it tore me apart to listen to all of this.

Grr.

Thank goodness for beer.

[Andara Bledin]

What to do with the food?

Make it as planned and have a picnic.

^-.-^

[kpzra]

Make a batch up anyway for yourself/friends. If you have any whiskey on hand make Irish Cream.

Sorry about your niece, being blindsided by being dumped is the worse.

[AccountingDrone]

Now, the duck and the bacon I can stick back in the freezer, I suppose. The non-perishables, such as the canned goods and the barbecue sauce, no worries there. But I have two pounds of tomatilloes, a whole bunch of serrano and jalapeno peppers, cilantro, onions, garlic, limes, buttermilk, heavy cream, etc. Just what the flying HELL am I supposed to do with all this stuff? In all my years of doing these things, I have never seen anything so screwy and bizarre, and I don't think I'll be participating in any future events that these same people run. I don't think I can afford it, actually!

Hm, I would recommend popping 1 duck and the bacon into the freezer. Go ahead and cook one duck just to familiarize yourself with the basic bird.

You can pre-clean and dice up the peppers, tomatillos, garlic and store them in zippy bags. Lay a sheet of waxed paper/parchment on a baking tray and spread them out in a single layer to freeze that way you can pop them into a zippy bag to store in the freezer and they wont glop together in a giant lump. Toss the cilantro, it tastes like soapy ass anyway and nobody will miss it [can you tell I am a supertaster?] Buttermilk can be made into pancakes and stuff like that, some people drink the crap. Heavy cream is great in coffee, oatmeal, cream of wheat, polenta ... limes, go for some mint and make mojitos?

[NorthernZel]

I agree with AccountingDrone. (Especially on the cilantros - I LOATH cilantros)

Alternatively, take some of one of the ducks (preferably the breast) and cook it into a confit and put it in a good, crunchy baguette to make an awesome sandwich. There's a French deli over here that makes these as their speciality, and it's the talk of the town.

[Jester]

Hm, I would recommend popping 1 duck and the bacon into the freezer. Go ahead and cook one duck just to familiarize yourself with the basic bird.

Not the worst idea I've ever heard.

Toss the cilantro, it tastes like soapy ass anyway and nobody will miss it [can you tell I am a supertaster?]

I'm from the Southwest, and I love cooking Southwestern food, and I love cilantro. I hate PREPPING the stuff (it's a damn pain in the ass), but I do love its flavor. So...no.

[QUOTE=AccountingDrone;1085971]Buttermilk can be made into pancakes and stuff like that, some people drink the crap.

It turns out my friend Little Red loves buttermilk, so I will either give her the whole container, or if I make the creme fraiche, I will give her what's left...which will be most of the container, as I don't need that much buttermilk anyway.

Heavy cream is great in coffee, oatmeal, cream of wheat, polenta ...

I don't drink coffee or eat oatmeal or cream of wheat.

I have never made polenta, but that is a possibility, since you mentioned it.

limes, go for some mint and make mojitos?

Definitely a good idea!