Duck: Duckling Information
Source of Recipe
fooddownunder.com
* Once a rare bird in all but the most elite restaurants, duckling now appears regularly on menus of all kinds, from trendy bistros to more middle-of-the-road establishments.
* Chefs love its versatility, gourmet cachet and robust flavor. But few of the rest of us have any experience preparing it.
* As a result, duck seldom crosses the road from the restaurant to the home kitchen - a characteristic that makes it all the more appealing as the centerpiece of a special dinner.
* Duckling sounds just exotic enough to make the meal memorable. And as a dark meat, it pairs beautifully with other rich, seasonal and assertive flavors, from cranberries and sweet spices to port wine and wild mushrooms.
* "Fruit and game are a natural marriage, but the beauty of duck is that it has enough character and flavor that you can approach it from many perspectives," says Clark Raines, corporate chef for Maple Leaf Farms of Milford, Ind., the nation's largest duckling producer.
* "It goes with all kinds of Asian flavors; it will stand up to Indonesian spices; it's great with curries. It has much more flavor and intensity than chicken and turkey." Cooking a duckling, however, isn't exactly like preparing its more pedestrian poultry cousins.
* "The secret in preparing a duck is handling it properly, so you can render the fat," Raines says. "There are all different kinds of techniques, most of which require piercing the skin or making small cuts in the skin to let the fat escape."
* That fat layer under the skin - the duck's insulation from cold weather - does not extend into the meat, however, and skinless cooked White Pekin duck breast actually has less fat per ounce than white skinless chicken, says Peggy Tsevis, a registered dietitian for the Duckling Council, the industry's trade group. A 3.(5-ounce) serving of skinless breast contains 2.5 fat grams and 140 calories, she says.
* White Pekin - once known as Long Island duckling, because so many were grown there - is the breed typically served in restaurants.
* Duck cookery is not especially difficult, says Raines, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America. It's really just a matter of knowing a few tricks - which he is happy to share.
* One of the first decisions you'll have to make is whether to roast the duck whole or cut it into parts so you can pan-sear the breast, the most succulent and highly prized part.
* The simplest method is roasting the whole bird.
* First, Raines says, prick the thicker parts of the duck's skin - the breast and some thigh areas - with the point of a paring knife to let the fat escape during cooking; cut into the fat but not down into the flesh. Rub the bird with salt and pepper and put it on a V-rack in a shallow roasting pan. Then add a small amount of water or stock to the pan to catch the dripping fat and keep it from spattering the oven.
* A rack is essential, Raines says; it lets the fat drip away from the bird and the skin become crisp.
* Frozen whole-body ducks, like turkeys, come with thawing and cooking instructions, including a time-and-weight cooking chart. A 6-pound duck roasted at 350 degrees should take about 2 1/2 hours; it will serve two to three people.
* "For the final 15 minutes of cooking, I like to go up to 450 degrees to crisp the skin; be sure to check that you still have moisture in the pan," he says.
* This straightforward roasting procedure is the European method.
* It's well-suited to dishes in which the bird will be featured with a flavorful sauce.
* But, as Raines notes, there's more than one way to cook a duck.
* The Asian method, which some chefs prefer, uses a two-stage process in which the whole bird is steam-cooked over water, then allowed to cool and rest before being oven-roasted at high heat. Before steaming, the duck is rubbed generously with salt and other seasonings to dry the skin.
* "The Cook's Illustrated Complete Book of Poultry" (Clarkson Potter, $32.50), which compared several cooking methods, advocates the twice-cooked method, even though it takes a least a day to complete.
* The skin is crisper and the bird is even less fatty than with regular oven roasting, the book's authors found.
* Duck prepared this way can also be paired with a sauce.
* What many diners want most, however, is the rosy breast meat, cooked medium or medium rare, sliced crosswise into tender medallions and paired with a flavorful sauce for an elegant entree.
* As corporate chef for Maple Leaf Farms, Raines has tried the bird in hundreds of ways. What's his favorite? "I really enjoy just a salt-and-pepper duck breast, scored, the skin nice and crisp, done just right. ... Just to taste the wonderful, succulent flavor of a well-prepared duck breast is very nice."
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