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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Duck for Dummies


This week, I decided to cook a duck!  I have been wanting to try to cook duck ever since I got back from study abroad.  Duck is all over Eastern Europe, and when I went to Prague, I accidentally ordered an entire duck for myself.. whoops!  Anyways, it was delicious, and with some help, I managed to finish the whole thing!




Anyways, this weekend, I have some free time, because there isn't a frisbee tournament.  I decided to venture to Eastern Market.  This actually reminded me a lot of study abroad.  Every city I visitied, I tried to go to a market.  I hadn't been back to any market since I've gotten back to the states, and this was a nice reminder.  As I was walking around, I saw a sign for duck, so I sprang for one.  My duck, at 5.4 pounds, is wonderful!

Little did I know what I was getting myself into.  Keeping in mind, I was the girl that sat in my Professor's office hours and balled my eyes out the day before our fetal pig dissection because I was too afraid to dissect.  This time around, I had a minor panic attack when I opened up the duck package.  I could actually see the things I had to look at in Biology.  Weird.  Anyways, I got over this eventually, to go on with the recipe.  

I found this awesome recipe to use, with an apple butter glaze.  I decided to roast some potatoes from my farm box to round out the meal.  The cool thing is, I used both sweet potatoes and blue potatoes.  I really like the color combination.  




And... on with the show!


Ingredients:
1 whole duck
Sea salt
Black pepper
2 Tb of fresh thyme
1 Jar of apple butter

Directions:
Take duck out of package.  Inside the cavity, there should be the innards.  This is like the heart, kidneys, liver, and other things.  (Do not panic).  Remove them, and either, 1. Throw them away or 2. Save them for other things.  I decided to actually make pate with the liver (recipe is here), and I am going to make duck stock next week to freeze.  However, if panic arises, just discard them.  No harm done. 

Rinse duck with cold water and pat dry.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and thyme.  I used fresh, but dried would also work.  I also put some thyme inside the duck.  I thought this would be a good idea, but I'm not sure if it actually did anything.  Then, I put it in the oven at 450 for 10ish minutes.
  


After that, I lowered the temperature to 350.  Every 15 minutes or so, I brushed apple butter on.  This helps the apple butter flavors set in.  

Anyways, it turned out well!  Duck is a success!

1 comment:

  1. YUMMM!! I love duck (and oddly the kidneys and stuff are delicious, but hard to get over the idea). It doesn't seem like this was really hard to make... am I completely delusional in thinking that?

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