Duck Three Ways Feast

[phatj]

Duck Three Ways Feast

Serves 4.

This actually isn't a single recipe, but a plan for preparing a fancy meal based around taking a whole duck and preparing various parts of it in three separate ways. This will feed two with lots of leftovers, or four pretty easily.

It encompasses four separate dishes: duck soup, Duck Leg Confit Potstickers, green salad with seared duck breast and potato wedges roasted in duck fat.

This is intended to be a pretty leisurely meal, served over the course of a couple of hours, and it can be participatory in that guests can help make the potstickers if they want. Augment the dishes with good bread, cheeses and pate if desired.

• 1 whole duck (fresh or frozen)
  

Duck stock

• 1 c chopped onion
  
• 1/2 c chopped carrot
  
• 1/2 c chopped celery
  
• 1 head fresh garlic, cloves separated, peeled, & lightly smashed
  

Duck Leg Confit

• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
  
• 1 whole head fresh garlic, cloves separated, peeled & lightly smashed
  
• 1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms
  
• 1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns
  
• 1 T kosher salt
  

Duck Breasts

• 1 navel orange, sliced
  
• 1 T kosher salt
  

Potatoes roasted in duck fat

• Yukon Gold potatoes
  

Several days in advance: if your duck is frozen, move to refrigerator to thaw.

Two days in advance:

Remove breasts from duck, keeping skin intact.

Remove legs from duck. Remove and reserve skin.

Remove skin and excess fat from remaining duck carcass; roughly chop all skin and fat, and heat along with a little water in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Render slowly until all water has evaporated (will stop bubbling). Strain fat into a container and refrigerate; reserve "cracklins" for whatever you want. They're a spectacular substitute for bacon bits on salad, for instance.

In an 8-qt stockpot, heat duck carcass, onion, carrot, celery and ~4 quarts of water over high heat until nearly boiling; reduce heat to low and simmer for 1/2 hour. Remove carcass from stock and pick off meat, then return carcass and simmer for another two hours. Strain and chill.

Toss breasts with salt, then wrap with orange slices; put in a zipper bag, press air out of bag, seal and refrigerate.

Toss legs with salt, then put in a zipper bag with thyme sprigs and garlic cloves; press air out of bag, seal and refrigerate.

One day in advance:

Skim fat from chilled stock; combine with rendered fat in a saucepan and melt over medium-low heat.

Heat oven to 250 F.

Put the duck legs, thyme sprigs, garlic cloves, porcini mushrooms and peppercorns in an oven-safe vessel just large enough for everything to fit in the bottom; pour duck fat in to just cover everything (augment with olive oil if needed). Cover vessel and place in oven. Cook, undisturbed, for at least two hours, preferably four or more. Meat should be extremely tender and falling off the bones. Carefully extract legs, then strain fat into a container and reserve. Pick out bits of meat from strainer as needed.

Strain and reduce stock.

Day of:

Make duck soup (I did an egg-drop soup with duck stock and bits of duck; I'll probably try something different next time); serve.

Make potstickers according to recipe linked above.

While cooking potstickers, heat oven to 400 F. Melt a couple tablespoons of leftover duck fat. Peel potatoes & cut into eighths; toss with duck fat and place in a Pyrex baking dish pointy edge up; roast for about 30-45 minutes or until golden-brown.

Sear breasts until medium-rare; let sit for a few minutes, then slice and serve over bitter greens with roasted potatoes. I used an orange-Balsamic dressing.

Keywords: Intermediate, Duck, Dinner

( RG2053 )