Crispy Duck - Sous Vide vs Steaming

[Kerry Beal]

I have a lovely duck - I've decided I want to make crispy duck using a variation on this recipe. I debating whether to stick to the steaming method or sous vide the duck instead.

I'm not sure if there would be any disadvantage to sous vide - as long as I drained well and dried the skin thoroughly before coating with the water chestnut starch - in terms of the crispiness of the skin. I assume that both methods would render me a nice quantity of duck fat and duck jelly.

If I do go with sous vide - what temperature should I be looking at? Breast rare I like around 55 to 57C - but I don't recall ever having rare breast in a crispy duck at a restaurant. Legs I'd do at between 75 and 80C.

Last thought - how long should I cook it? The steamed version cooks for two hours until the leg is loose. Shall I go about the same or much longer for the sous vide version?

[tim]

Sous vide would be perfect for duck. The fats would melt beautifully and simplify the crisping session.

You will need a separate the breasts from the duck and use a separate cooking vessel to get that rare breast; a beer cooler would be fine. You could also cook the breasts at 100C to your desired temp and then crisp.

[Kerry Beal]

I don't have thru hull fittings here to determine the temperature of the meat in the bag. I have my SVM setup so I won't need a beer cooler or anything.

I am hoping to keep the duck as close to the original as possible - ie was not planning to separate the breast from the legs just as I would not have if steaming.

[rotuts]

here is another thought: this comes from Madeleine Kaman, a version I saw and have used a lot since her very old PBS show. It

might not appeal to you as its "2 courses" but delicious. you can use the spices from your original Rx:

bone out the duck breasts w the skin. this is course 1: score the skin/fat, cook in a hot pan skin side down until the skin is crisp then flip over and reduce heat until rare or how you like it. use thermapen to test, take off heat and let equilibrate to your target temp.

course 2 ( cooking while you do #1 ) bone out leg/thigh with max skin. place on a rack above some water in a pan, about 1" of water. I have a stainless steel rectangular pan that holds two leg-sets. put this in a very hot oven 450 for 45 min +. you need the water in the bottom to collect the fat drippings so they do not burn. this might still be a little smokey if some of the fat hits the sides of your oven. the skin will be very very crispy. glaze or not with something that fits your Rx. for a few minutes.

these come out very very hot so you have to be a little patient when inhaling them.

while #2 is cooking you are eating # 1. I love duck this way. you save the carcass and simmer to melt the fat which you skim off and have a little duck stock to reduce and use for something else.

you obviously do not have the WoW factor of a whole duck, but you also dont have the issues of all that fat to try in.

the skin is crispy with the breast if you do it correctly, and amazingly crispy with the legs. you might add a dipping sauce for the legs on your original Rx's theme

Edited June 28, 2013 by rotuts (log)

[sigma]

In my experience you need to pre render the duck breast before sous vide or you are going to have to keep it in the pan a long time after in order to shrink the fat layer. So place it in a cool pan, cook over medium to medium low until the fat is thinned down, then refrigerate and vacuum. The fat layer will insulate the meat so it doesn't cook.

No reason to cook the legs over 68C unless you want them stringy or are pressed for time.

[rotuts]

BTW if you want the duck breast severed with the legs, just start the legs for that both end up done at the same time.

you get rare 'crispy-ish' skinned DB, and stunning crispy DL's, which will come out very similarly to your Rx.

[Franci]

I made this dish a couple times. No suggestions for sous vide, but I can tell you that this is a Chinese style duck so you don't have a rare breast, I kept my breast with the legs and it was fine. The first time I steamed the duck for 3 hours and it was very tender ( and fragile), so much that I couldn't fry it twice. Second time was a little firmer, rendered less fat and was not as crisp and tasty. You can read also Barbara Tropp and Irene Kuo on this recipe. I didn't find that cutting the duck in half helped much and I found a. Nguyen coating didn't stick much to my duck. Make sure the skin it's really well dried and shake excess flour.

[Kerry Beal]

I'll probably have to cut the duck in half just to facilitate the frying with the equipment I have here. I'm hoping that a slurry of water chestnut starch/flour will give me the really crispy effect I'm after.

I'll get this spiced up and sitting in the fridge for a day or so - then hopefully figure out how long I want to sous vide it for.

[Kerry Beal]

Dissatisfied with the unknown - I decided on a little N of 1 experiment. I cut the duck in half and half was steamed for 2 hours, the other cooked sous vide at 70º C for around 10 hours.

After cooking and drying the skin - both halves were coated with a slurry of water chestnut flour. Sous vide on the left, steamed on the right. Sous vide half a bit plumper.

Fried twice in canola oil, the first time at about 325 F, the second at 375.

The sous vide pieces are those on the right - you can see they still have a bit of a pinkish cast.

All in all - the sous vide meat was a bit more moist and tender - the crispiness of skin was equivalent on both halves.

It disappeared rather quickly at work.

[weedy]

I don't remember where exactly, but I know I've read, at least once, that you "can't" get crispy skin on a duck breast if you cook the breast sous vide with the skin on...

 

proof that this is nonsense:

 

 

[mm84321]

Thank you so deeply for this illumination.

[Anna N]

weedy,

Not sure where you heard that crispy duck skin was off the table after sous viding but Serious Eats debunked that notion a while back

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/09/sous-vide-101-duck-breast-recipe.html

[weedy]

I know... I didn't think I was breaking bold new territory.

Just a nice crispy photo!

[lordratner]

Not quite what I remember hearing. What I remember is NathanM saying you can't have a perfectly cooked breast as well as perfectly cooked skin without separating the two. Crisping the skin after SVing the breast will overcook the part of the breast closest to the skin.

 

But my-oh-my does that look tasty. 

Edited September 8, 2014 by lordratner (log)

[Anna N]

I know... I didn't think I was breaking bold new territory.

Just a nice crispy photo!

Tis a beautiful sight and reminded me that I have two duck breasts in the freezer. Hope they turn out as mouth-watering as your photo.

[btbyrd]

Not quite what I remember hearing. What I remember is NathanM saying you can't have a perfectly cooked breast as well as perfectly cooked skin without separating the two. Crisping the skin after SVing the breast will overcook the part of the breast closest to the skin.

 

That's not what MC says. Their method seems like a lot of work though.

Edited September 8, 2014 by btbyrd (log)

[lordratner]

That's not what MC says. Their method seems like a lot of work though.

IIRC, the discussion I was referencing was before MC was released. I'm guessing cryo-searsing wasn't yet a consideration. But I'm honestly too lazy to find the posts. Thanks for the link though, I had forgotten about that one.

[Martin Fisher]

Nathan was talking traditional methods......

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144275-sous-vide-recipes-techniques-equipment-part-7/?p=1756081

[Okanagancook]

For a nice duck breast I like the fat to be rendered, the skin to be crispy and the meat to be on the rare side. Does the fat get rendered when it I'd sous vide?

[weedy]

Not quite what I remember hearing. What I remember is NathanM saying you can't have a perfectly cooked breast as well as perfectly cooked skin without separating the two. Crisping the skin after SVing the breast will overcook the part of the breast closest to the skin.

 

But my-oh-my does that look tasty. 

 

that might be one of the places I saw it, I think perhaps Lodgson said it, but it gets repeated a lot.

But I beg to differ.

Kenji has it right. That remained perfectly pink all the way to the skin.

Edited September 8, 2014 by weedy (log)