plucking a duck!

linzi1978

Hi

I have been given two ducks! only problem is i have to prepare them myself, I had a go with one but could not get all the little downy hairs off and made a real hash of it so just took of the breasts and will hopefully having them for tomorrows tea. Does anyone know of a full step by step guide in preparing the duck? still have the other one hanging in my garage and really dont want to waste so much of it as i did the first one, would love to roast this one whole.
any ideas would be great, :j

linzi

Quackers

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Dont do it.

Step away from the Duck.

Take it off its hook and release it to the wild.

All future duck cruelty will be recorded and reported to Donald.

He will not be impressed.

Love from the duck


*Just kidding* But I still have no practical duck stripping & cooking advice cos I is a [STRIKE]vegetable[/STRIKE] veggie

Debt_Free_Chick

What kind of duck? Wildfowl e.g. mallard, teal, widgeon etc you don't want to hang for too long - certainly not as long as game. No more than three days, I'd say.

Plucking is something that improves with practice. You simply grasp a small handful between your fingers and pull - gently, but firmly - in the direction in which they grow (the opposite to waxing your legs!). I find it helps to use my free hand to gently stretch the skin in the opposite direction. So ... I put my left hand at the top of the breast, where it meets the neck, push down and up towards the head a little, then pluck from the other end with my right hand, pulling away from the bird towards the right.

As you've found, ducks have plenty of down and you simply have to keep going at it. If you're still left with very fine down, take a kitchen blowtorch to it - honestly

Is there any reason why you want the skin on? If you don't want the skin on, you can simply peel off the skin & feathers in one go.

Cut through the feathers and skin with a sharp knife down the breast bone, from the top towards the tail. Ease your fingers in between the breast meat and the skin. Push your fingers all around - up, down and around towards the back. Once loose, rip the whole thing off as if it were a jacket. Skin and feathers will come off in one go, but you'll need to remove the wings and use a knife to cut the skin away from the legs.

If you really want the skin (lovely when it's crisp), then I think you'll need to keep plucking patiently.

Wildfowl don't deliver much meat on the legs and practically nothing on the wings, so whilst it sounds great to roast it whole, you won't get much more than just the breasts anyway.

For the next two months, I'll be preparing (plucking and drawing) a dozen birds a week, on average. Although a friend of mine does more like 30! :eek:

Penelope_Penguin

We did the same to a brace of pheasant earlier in the week. I agree with DFC - unless you want the skin, it's much easier to remove most of the feathers, then take off the rest with the skin.

When we come to cook them, we wrapped the birds in bacon to provide some moisture. Ducks shouldn't need that, though.

Enjoy! Penny. x