Utah Wildlife Forum banner
1 - 15 of 15 Posts

· Banned
Joined
·
4,885 Posts
Discussion Starter · #1 ·
Anyone know a good duck recipe that you like the best or several?
 

· Registered
Joined
·
1,082 Posts
Mark Twain used to say to marinade duck in your favorite wine, then huck the duck and drink the wine. Not sure why you'd taint perfectly good wine, or cardboard for that matter.

In my experience the best thing you can do with duck is to be selective with what you shoot. Grain-fed mallards that consistently fly into wheat, corn, or other grain fields to feed can be very tasty. Birds that feed rough, or the diving ducks/fish eating ducks are going to taste like swamp muck every time.

About the best thing I've found is to marinade them in some kind of carbonated beverage mixed with a strong BBQ sauce for 24 hours. Just get your favorite BBQ sauce, and mix about a cup of it with beer, Sprite, or something along those lines. I will also sometimes wrap a few strips of bacon around the meat, then grill it up.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
518 Posts
I have heard, but not tried, that if you place the duck on some of that butchers padding, that obsorbs blood, for three weeks, in the fridge. Also I have heard that if you get the all the blood shot areas out and any thing that its red out, that gets rid of alot of the nasty taste. I have two sets of mallard breast in the fridge to try. It will be a couple weeks.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
890 Posts
The best duck I have had (which isn't saying much) is to soak it a day in brine then toss them in a pyrex with a can of cream of mushroom soup and bake them at 350.
I decided to measure the brine a little better this year and get it to the same salinity as blood (0.09%), it seems to draw the blood out without making it too salty.

I bought a Buck Gardner call this year with a couple of DVD's. One part of a DVD addresses cooking duck and they use meat tenderizer and use recipes that cook the duck more like beef than a bird. I will have to try the recipes from the DVD if I get a few more birds this year.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
392 Posts
Most of your bad taste starts with the birds you shoot. Mallards, pintails, teal, gadwalls, and similar will be the better eating birds. (Hold off on the spooners, goldeneyes, lawn darts, etc.) Dress them out soon and cool them quickly. Rinse any blood and shot damaged areas with cold water and pat dry. Glaze with a little olive oil or similar and then season liberally with any type of 'rub' seasoning (even good old season salt works, I like Montreal Seasoning). Fire up the BBQ on high and when the grill is very hot, cook'em very hot and very fast. Medium rare to medium, but don't go past this point. Overcooking makes them taste bad (overcooking anything makes it taste bad for that matter...)

I will tell you this: if you try this method you'll never talk bad about ducks again! The next time a big greenhead cups over the decoys your mouth will be watering!!! :wink:

I have a breasted out greenhead in the fridge right now and it's making me hungry. :mrgreen:
 

· Registered
Joined
·
482 Posts
Dice the breasts into 1 inch cubes. Marinate overnight in worchestershire or teriyaki sauce.
Stir fry into any oriental recipe. I prefer sweet and sour but this one very good as well:
1 tablespoon sesame oil
8 breast halves thinly sliced
1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
2 cups fresh green beans
1 cup shredded carrots
1 red bell pepper, deseeded and cut into thin strips
1/2 cup teriyaki or stir-fry sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Cook the duck in the sesame oil to medium in the five-spice powder. Remove from the pan but keep it warm.

Add the beans, carrots and bell pepper to the pan. stir-fry until crisp tender.

Add the teriyaki sauce, sesame seeds and cooked duck. stir-fry until heated through and slightly thickened.
Serve hot. I like to put it over steamed rice.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
405 Posts
Our old family recipe is fairly simple, but I really like it this way. The biggest problem is the preparation. You have to pluck the bird first. Then take a candle and burn off and down, etc. that may remain. When you clean it, cut off the tail, as the duck's oil gland is contained therein. If you leave it on, it will make the duck extra greasy, and increase the potency of the flavor. Then stuff it like a turkey, with a good seasoned dressing and sew shut. The next part you can do two ways, the cooking. We always place a piece of salt pork on the breast, and fasten it with a toothpick. You can either pressure cook it for a few minutes (this part I have never mastered, although that's what my mother did) in a presto cooker, my mom said 45 minutes in a presto. In a pressure cooker, somewhere around 20. Then bake in the oven for 30 minutes with the salt pork. Since I can't seem to get the pressure cooker timed right (I don't own a presto cooker) I place the ducks in a roaster and cook on low heat, maybe 250 for about three hours (make sure you add water and don't let it boil dry). This seems to work pretty well for me. You can increase the temperature and cook it faster, but I find that if I do so, the meat tends to be tough. My kids all like it this way, boys and girls alike. My wife is not a big fan, but will still eat it. I have a friend I teach with that has a good recipe for duck breast, but I don't know what I did with it. It was a marinate though.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
1,153 Posts
I have posted this a few times before on other forums including the DWR but I still think it's worth a post. Problem is, - tooooooo simple, doesn't have the refinments of the preceeding and it ain't "upper crust". Please don't get me wrong, they are great, but why not just put the breast in a hot frying pan with butter, cook it to rare (med. rare max,) take it out and put some salt and peeper, maaaybe some soy sauce on it and eat it up???? You'd be surpissed at how good it tastes and how much it tastes like a steak. :D :D :D
Leaky
 

· Registered
Joined
·
42 Posts
Soak your duck breasts in milk for a day or two, then soak in A1 steak sauce, roll in flour and seasonings which you mix in with flour first......drop it into hot oil...(deep fry) until golden brown.....serve with fries and beer of course.....very tasty and very quick and easy
 

· Registered
Joined
·
8,273 Posts
I am a firm believer in there being no such thing as a "good duck recipe". I hate veggies, but I would eat the slimiest greenest spinach over a duck prepared by any one. I quit duck hunting because I moved away from the only person I know who was glad to take the things off my hands when I brought them home. I would shoot and clean them, he would cook and eat them. I got the better end of that deal for sure! I have enough ducks on my walls, so I quit hunting the nasty tasting birds.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
405 Posts
So Pro, tell us how you really feel about Spinach! :rotfl:

I actually really like the stuff. I guess that's why I like duck as well. But then, I like sushi, sushimi, ceviche, saur kraut (spelling?), blue cheese dressing, and muenster cheese! I'm a real galloping gourmet. *OOO*
 

· Registered
Joined
·
405 Posts
I've heard duck tastes like mud
Don't know myself, as I've never eaten mud. :lol: As I said before, I like it. But I also like liver and onions simmered in tomato juice. I've got some in the freezer from a cow elk I killed yesterday. Good stuff. yeah, I know what some are thinking, but my mom cooked it for us all the time when I was a kid. I guess I got used to it, to the point that I learned to like it. You know how those depression people were. :wink:
 
1 - 15 of 15 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top