It's Duck Season!

Pick Your Duck

When we were at the farmer's market last weekend, I passed a stand I didn't remember ever seeing before.  It was Dolan Farms Poultry.  They don't have much of a web presence, but their chalkboard sign indicated that they sell ducks, geese, and lamb.  We'd already purchased a chicken, a dozen eggs, and a bunch of produce and were running low on cash.  Unfortunately, most places at the farmer's market don't take cards, so we ended up purchasing the smallest duck they had on hand - about 3.25 pounds.

I was surprised they had a duck this small - I buy 5-pound chickens at the market regularly, and expected ducks to be at least that size.  Conor Dolan, the farm's owner, explained to me that they harvested their ducks earlier than usual this year and so they were running smaller.  Normally, he said, they would be in the 5-to-7 pound range.  He didn't say why they harvested them early, but I'm guessing it has to do with the extreme drought we've been experiencing.  This drought has been particularly tough for farmers who raise pastured animals.  These producers aren't used to paying for grain at all, but with the fields dried out there isn't much for the animals to graze on, and so they are  forced to purchase grain just to keep their livestock and poultry alive.  As well, they are having to pay record high prices for that grain due to low corn and soybean yields.

Prick Your Duck

Regardless of the reason for the small size, I was still quite happy to acquire this duck.  I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with it, but I was sure it was going to be good.  After kicking around various treatments, I decided to smoke it.  Furthermore, since my smoke is currently Out of Order, I decided to smoke it on my gas grill, and to use the rotisserie spit.  But before doing any of this, I decided to brine it.

I used my typical brine solution:

Typical Brine Solution

2 quarts water

1 cup coarse kosher salt

I placed the bird in a stainless-steel pot with the brine and then covered it with a plastic ziploc bag filled with water to hold it down underwater.  It stayed in the brine for five hours.  When it came out of the brine, I rinsed it and put it on the cutting board.  Here's what it looked like:

The first thing I noticed was that ducks have much longer sternums then chickens and consequently more breast meat.  The next thing I noticed is that, although ducks are known for being fatty, this duck was very lean.  There was some fat under the skin of the breast, but otherwise I couldn't see any visible fat deposits at all.  I pricked the skin of the breast repeatedly with the point of a sharp knife to allow the fat to drain out while it turned on the spit.  I was careful not to pierce the meat though!  I didn't want any of the juices in the meat to drain out, because that would make the meat dry and tough.

Blow Your Duck

Next, I dragged the fan out of the bedroom and plugged it into the kitchen to blow across the duck.  This would help to dry out the surface and form a nice pellicle for the smoke to adhere to.  I kept the fan blowing on it for about an hour, and I flipped it and rotated it a couple of times to make sure the back and both ends were dry as well.  You could skip this step if you needed to and just pat it with some paper towels, but forming a pellicle creates a significantly browner skin and a thicker smoke ring.

Tie Up and Spit Your Duck

As I said above, you don't want to pierce the meat and allow the juices to flow out.  That would defeat the whole purpose of the brine.  Fortunately, my rotisserie spit came with four-tined forks that fit just perfectly around this duck, creating a sort of cage that held it in place and supported it without any of the tines actually piercing the flesh.  It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but none of the tines are actually going into the meat.  One is going between the thigh and pelvic area in the photo below.  Another is going over the breast skin, but appears to be going into the breast meat because of the camera angle:

Here's another photo showing the back side:

Slather Your Duck With a Sweet, Sticky Sauce

I used maple syrup. Fake, flavored corn syrup is *not* maple syrup and will not give your duck a good flavor.  This bird gave it's life for your gastronomic enjoyment, so please treat it with the respect it deserves and use a quality maple syrup.  Alternatives include light molasses, fruit juices, or jam/jelly/marmalade.  Cherry and orange are favorites, but you should seriously consider raspberry or peach.  Be creative, but remember that bright, sweet flavors work the best for duck, and sticky is good for getting the smoke to adhere.  

Speaking of smoke, I should point out that duck is not chicken.  It doesn't taste the same, it doesn't have the same texture, and it takes much longer to cook.  Don't make the mistake of thinking you can use you favorite chicken recipe and substitute duck for chicken.  You just can't.  It won't work and you'll end up having pizza for dinner.  On the other hand, duck can be much, much more delicious than chicken when cooked properly.  In particular, it's stronger flavor stands up well to lots of smoke, and the tougher texture of duck lends itself well to low-and-slow cooking.  That makes smoked duck a natural, and doing things like forming a pellicle, using a sticky basting sauce, and selecting woods with stronger flavors (I used hickory) are perfectly reasonable actions when cooking duck, even though I wouldn't recommend these things for chicken.  In fact, these days I hardly smoke chicken at all.  When I do, I just brine it and through it on the smoker, but I'm much more likely to grill it than to smoke it.

Smoke Your Duck

I mentioned earlier that my Kenmore vertical smoker is down, right?  It has a bad regulator, and in typical Sears/Kenmore fashion, they used custom threads on the valve hose so you cannot use an off-the-shelf replacement regulator from Lowes or Menards.  I guess they figure they can sell more smokers that way.  In any case, I have plans for that smoker that will be detailed on this blog in future articles.  For now, I'm getting by using the new Huntington gas grill that I received for my birthday last April.  It has four regular burners plus a rotisserie burner.  In the photo below you can see my setup for the duck:

I removed the grates so I could put the wood chips closer to the flames.  I've only got one wood chip box (the one from the Kenmore, on the right side of the grill) and this is a fairly large unit that is much less air-tight than an actual smoker so I supplemented the wood chip box with a heavy steel colander full of hickory chips (on the back left side of the grill).  In the middle, under the bird, I placed a drip pan.  Even though the duck is spitted on a rotisserie, I'm not using the rotisserie burner because I'm smoking the bird and need to use the regular burners to keep the wood chips smoking.  Hopefully this makes sense to you...if not, just post a question in the comments and I'll try to give a better explanation.  Also, here's a couple more photos that might help explain what I'm trying to accomplish:

The drip pan catches fat dripping off the duck so it doesn't cause flare-ups.  Also, I'm used to using a water smoker (my old Kenmore is a water smoker), so I put water in the drip tray, thus it is pulling double duty by adding humidity under the grill hood while also catching the dripping fat.

See how much smoke is pouring out of the unit (above)?  That's both good and bad.  Good, because the duck is being exposed to a lot of smoke.  Bad, because I have to keep opening the hood to replenish the wood chips as they burn down.  Every time I open the hood, the temperature drops and the smoke exits.  I don't get too frustrated by this though...it is what it is, and life is full of trade-offs.  Smoking meat takes patience, and patience is virtuous.

Eat Your Duck

Here's what the duck looked like near the end of the smoke.  I think I went another 20 minutes or so after this photo because the inner thigh meat wasn't quite 165 degrees yet (which was the internal temperature I was shooting for).  This is because, when you truss a birds legs, you're creating a sort of "pocket" between the pelvic area and the inner thigh, so the inner thigh is somewhat protected from the heat.  Since the thigh meat of a duck is some of the most wonderful, flavorful meat on the bird, you don't want that to be undercooked.  Besides, if you are cooking low and slow and you brined your duck properly, another twenty minutes isn't going to hurt anything.  It's actually pretty hard to overcook a duck when your grill/smoker is only running 200-225 degrees!

Finally, here is the finished product.  I smoked it at about 215-225 degrees for 4 1/2 hours.  Remember though that this is a pretty small duck.  If you have a larger one (which you almost certainly will, especially with a domestic bird) you will want to smoke it longer at that temperature.  If you're in a hurry though, feel free to crank the heat up as high as 300, just make sure you brine it good first and baste it while cooking.  

Once you pull it off the smoker, let it rest for 15 minutes before carving.  Otherwise you will lose all of the juices as soon as you cut into it and it will taste very dry.  

Bon Appetit!