Sunday, January 22, 2012

Quick! Duck!

My husband went to breakfast with his father yesterday. He called me on his way home to tell me he had a huge surprise! After a guessing match, it was determined it would be an item for the kitchen that could be plugged in, but not necessarily that should be plugged in.

I had no guesses.



He walked in extraordinarily proud of himself! Once again, he brought home food! This one would require a bit of extra work though.





I'm not sure, other than fish, I've ever had food with a face in my house. It was a little weird! I was thinking about a roast duck for dinner though so, on with the show!

After a few blog consults, the plucking began. Tip: If you're going to pluck a duck, do it outside. Tip #2: Those little fuckers quack when you press on them! Holy shit I was freaked. Jeff had already left the house, I grabbed a handful off feathers and pressed in the duck to pull them out. I was met with a resounding QUACK! No, the bird wasn't alive. It was just caught air coming out but still, dude, seriously scary!







I roasted two of them. The other two were put in FoodSaver bags. FYI: Awesomeness is sucking the air out of stuff and having it heat sealed!

One had just salt and pepper. The other I put Penzey's Northwoods seasoning on. This is a fantastic spice for wild game. I recommend it for all kitchens.

Today I took the leftover carcass and made some stock. A little onions, carrots, celery, and some seasonings like cumin, salt, and garlic. Low boiled for a few hours it made a wonderful stock.

So I was like, hmmm, what am I doing with a pot of duck stock? Answer: awesome risotto!

Saute onions in some olive oil and butter. Add in some diced ham, diced venison sausage, portabella mushrooms and arborio rice. Mix until no juice is left. Add in about a cup of white wine. Simmer until it's all gone. Add in duck stock about a cup at a time and keep stirring. It took about 12-15 cups of duck stock. Ended up super nice and creamy in about an hour. I removed from the heat and stirred in some Parmesan and heavy cream. Awesome.

Then I decided I had spent two days with the duck and no longer had any interest in eating it. So I ended up making spinach with warm bacon dressing. That's for another day but it's AWESOME!





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