Duck Prosciutto

Home-cured duck prosciutto 

My brother bought me a very exciting cookbook for Christmas:

This book is all about preserved meats--pate, sausages, confit, salami, etc--types of foods you'd never consider making at home, mostly because the idea of aging meat in your house sounds icky or potentially dangerous to a reasonable person.
I, however, have a cavalier attitude towards germs--I've enjoyed ceviche purchased on the street in El Salvador and live to tell that harrowing tale--and the thought of creating these kind of delicious, salty, fatty delicacies at home was wildly thrilling. I read the whole book cover to cover, like a novel. And I had to try my hand at Charcuterie as soon as possible. I've made confit, pate, and rillettes previously, always to spectacular results--so this time I wanted something new. Duck prosciutto was one of the simplest recipes in the book--and DUCK PROSCIUTTO? Duck in the style of cured, dried pork? I had to try it.
The recipe is simple:

HOW TO MAKE DUCK PROSCIUTTO: Pack one duck breast in kosher salt, cover and refrigerate 24 hours.  Remove from salt, rinse it, dry it, wrap in cheesecloth and hang for a week or so.  A general rule is dry-cured products are done when they lose 30% of their weight.

I bought a package of four duck breasts. I decided to make one breast (2 lobes) plain, no seasonings, and to make one with a rub of garlic and bay leaves. 

Fresh duck breasts. 

Duck breasts about to cure in kosher salt for 24 hours. 

Removing the duck from the salt a day later. 

I hung these to age in our basement--cheesecloth was hard to find (they didn't have it at Alberton's) so I cut up some of Adam's old shirts and used those. 

Coming soon to an app plate in Denver!

This turned out delish--if you like salty, meaty, gamey things--which I very much do. The layer of fat is meltingly soft, the meat is chewy and deeply ducky. I sliced some as thin as possible and ate it with some cheese and pickled sweet onions. Just perfect. 

And now I have four big lobes of duck prosciutto, waiting for the perfect occasion. 

Enjoy!

Chinese Roast Duck (with Chinese pickled vegetables, sesame pancakes, and special duck sauce)

Chinese pickled veggies, sesame pancakes, special sauce, roast duck. Impossible to overstate the deliciousness of this meal. 

Homemade Roast Duck! 

Duck pancake, about to be rolled up and devoured. 

I've been making this dinner for a few years now, and it is absolutely fabulous. Totally one of the dinners in our "pantheon" of best things I make. I can't imagine a better dinner at home. It's not  a quick dinner to make--you might want to save this for a Sunday when you'd be kitchen-putzing anyway. But so incredibly worth the time. This is perfect special occasion eating--what I'd make if we were having Christmas or New Years just the two of us.
The first time I made this was a couple weeks after Adam and I moved in together. It was a weeknight in our Cap Hill apartment and we ate it at the kitchen counter. And it was insanely delicious. That's the whole story.
I LOVE duck, and have tried making it a million ways--confit, seared breasts, Euro-styled roasted (with a wine salt rub), etc--but no duck preparation has ever compared to this recipe. The only way to get better duck is to head to Federal for the real stuff.

This dinner has four recipes in one--the duck, the pancakes, the pickled veggies, and the sauce. So, bear with me! Here comes all the information you need for the best dinner you've ever made.

Start the day before, by marinating the duck.

Roasted Duck Ingredients
1 whole defrosted duck (make sure to take the liver, other organs, and neck out of the cavity. Sometimes there is a bag of "orange sauce" in there too--just get rid of it)

a 2 inch, chubby piece of ginger
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup soy sauce (I used extra-dark)
1/4 cup sherry or Chinese cooking wine
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
2 tablespoons honey or sugar
1.5 tablespoons Chinese 5 spice powder
2 tsp cayenne pepper (or 1 tablespoon chile oil)

What to do
Place all of the marinade ingredients in the blender and blitz them into a smooth puree. 
Place the duck into a roasting pan (Or a bowl, or a large bag if it will fit). Pour the marinade over the duck and rub it in. 
Place the duck in the fridge to marinate. Every so often, rotate the duck or scoop the marinade up and pour it back over the duck. Make sure to get some marinade into the cavity--you want every surface of the duck soaked. Marinate overnight or for at least five hours. 
Time to roast the duck!
Preheat the oven to 430 degrees. 
Brush off any chunky bits of marinade clinging to the outside of the duck. 
Poke the duck all over with a fork. Pierce the skin but not the meat. Pierce about 50 times overall, in the breast, legs, back--everywhere. 
Place a roasting rack in a roasting pan. 
Truss the duck (tie the legs together) and tuck the wings under the breast. 
Roast breast-side up for 40 minutes (at 430)
Roast breast-side down for 40 minutes( at 430) 
Crank the oven up to 525 and roast breast-side up for 25 more minutes. The skin should be crispy and have a deep brown color. 
Take the duck out and allow to rest for at least 20 minutes before carving. 
Reserve the duck fat for future culinary perversions (and put some in the special sauce!) 
Serve with sesame pancakes, pickled vegetables, and special sauce. 

Hacked up

Sesame Pancakes 

Ingredients 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 to 1 cup boiling water, as needed
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil, or as needed

What to do 

In a large bowl, add the boiling water to the flour and begin stirring it in immediately. Knead the warm dough until you have a smooth dough. Cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Turn the rested dough out onto a floured surface. Cut the dough in half. Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll each half out until it is 1/4-inch thick. Use a cookie cutter or the bottom of a water glass to cut out 3-inch circles of dough.

Use a pastry brush to brush 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil over the top of 2 dough circles. Lay one pancake on top of each other, so that the oiled sides are together. (Don't worry if one of the edges hangs over the other). Roll out the pancakes to form a 6-inch circle. Continue with the remainder of the pancakes. Use a damp towel to cover the prepared pancakes and keep them from drying out while making the remainder.

Heat a heavy frying pan over low heat. Add one of the pancake pairs and cook until browned on both sides (about 3 minutes altogether; the second side will cook more quickly than the first side). Remove the paired pancakes from the pan and place into tin foil to keep warm. Continue with the remainder of the pancakes. Serve with duck! (If you did a really good job making these you might be able to pull them apart into even thinner pancakes--works for me about half the time). 

Rolling out the dough. 

Painting Sesame Oil onto the circles of dough. 

A (somewhat misshapen) pancake cooking. 

Chinese Pickled Vegetables 

Slice 1 bunch scallions, half a red onion, and one carrot into thin strips. Place into a bowl or a tupperware. 

Add:

1 cup rice vinegar (or Chinese black vinegar--or any light-colored vinegar) 

3/4 cup water 

1/4 cup soy sauce 

2 tablespoons sugar 

2 tablespoons sesame oil 

Allow to sit in the pickling liquid at least 20 minutes before serving--several hours is also fine, and these will keep well for a few days in the fridge. 

Special Duck Sauce 
In a small bowl, blend: 
1/2 cup Hoisin sauce 
juice of 1 lime 
a dash of some spicy element (chile oil or sriracha or some cayenne pepper) 
2 or 3 tablespoons of the hot duck fat from the bottom on the roasting pan 

Dribble this over the duck before eating! 



Enjoy!!!

Hoisin-Glazed Duck Confit

Confit duck legs with soy-ginger noodles 

I have been on a serious Asian-food kick lately, thanks to my strong drive to return to the Pacific Ocean Market on Alameda as often as possible. But: our camera is having issues so much of these cooking projects will live on only in our memories.
But: I started this duck confit before the camera got sick, so I wanted to include it.
To "confit" something means to slow cook it in it's own fat, thereby preserving it. Once cooked, it can remain bathing in cold fat in the fridge for months, growing duckier and more delicious with each passing day. I aged mine for about a week, then took the legs out of the fat, brushed them with a mix of hoisin, lime, and chili oil, baked them then broiled them.
The result was incredibly soft, incredibly ducky meat with crispy skin. I made a big batch of noodles with veggies to go with and we ate on the porch. A lovely night.

How can you walk past duck legs and not purchase? You cannot. 

I marinated them in soy, sesame oil, salt and sugar. 

Luckily, I had some duck fat on hand, reserved in the fridge from previous roast ducks. This tub of grease moved between houses with us.
Ultimately, I didn't have enough duc fat to cover the legs entirely, so I added canola oil as well. 

I cooked them overnight at 185. 

Then put them in a container and poured the fat over them. Left in the fridge for a week. 

Hoisin-Glazed Duck Confit

Ingredients: 
Confit
4 duck legs, or more if you have a large enough pot 
Duck fat. (This is a very hard ingredient to buy. What I do is save the fat every time I roast a duck and use that. If you don't have duck fat, you can use oil.) 
1 cup soy sauce 
dash sesame oil 
1 tsp Chinese 5-spice 
1/2 cup sugar 
4 TB kosher salt 
1 head of garlic

Glaze
3 TB hoisin sauce
juice of 2 limes 
1 tsp chili oil

What to do: 
Mix the soy sauce, sesame oil, 5 spice, sugar, and salt in a ziplock bag or a large bowl. Add the duck legs and let the sit in the marinade overnight or for at least a few hours.
Take the duck legs out and shake the marinade off (but don't rinse). Place them in the bottom of a pot or braising dish, and cover them entirely with duck fat or oil. Slice the top off the head of garlic and add it to the pot whole.
Turn the oven on to 185 and put the pot of legs in. Go to bed. 
Wake up and jump out of bed, excited about confit. Run downstairs and remove the pot from the oven. Allow to cool for about an hour, then remove the duck legs to a storage container (I used tupperware) and cover with fat. Seal and refrigerate. 
Leave in the fridge for days or weeks. 
When you're ready to eat them, remove the legs from the fat. Shake off as much of the fat as you can and place them skin-sde up on a cookie sheet. Turn the oven on to 400. Mix the hoisin, lime juice, and chili oil together and brush onto the leg legs on both sides. Roast at 400 for about 25 minutes. Then, take the legs out and brush again with glaze. Turn the the over to high broil and put the legs back in for 3-5 minutes--you want the skin crispy--a little char is ok. 
Allow to rest for 5 minutes, then serve. 

I served this with a noodle dish heavy on acid, herbs and spice--the freshness was a great counterpoint to the rich duck.
It was DELICIOUS, and really not particularly hard. Will be making this over and over!