I have to try this upcoming season.

Subscribed............

Who all is aging their ducks this year?

I want to give it a try.

I will age some mallards or pintails, the rest will be cleaned as soon as possible, frozen, and taken to Kuby's for sausage. Did that last year for the first time it was great.

My out side garage fridge is also not getting cold enough to freeze food, I keep beer in the freezer now and it keeps it ice cold but not cold enough to freeze. So I need to get a new fridge or a new freezer one of the two....

I'm going to try the aging thing myself.

Shot these mallards Sunday 11/22. Left skin on, cleaned good, soaked in water one day, salt and pepper, aged in big tuppaware. Give them a flip everyday, put paper towel in there to sop up excess juice, don't make too dry tho. This is my favorite way to age duck these days, I will eat duck every day, you can really tell the difference each day...



Cooked these last night, on my cast iron skillet.... Blacked mallard steak and tator tots, liven the dream... My wife loves duck too.

One thing I notice is when they age, the duck steaks do not ball-up as much. Take a freshly killed duck breast, throw on hot caste iron skillet, it balls up tight. The more it ages, the less it shrinks, has more of a texture of a steak you buy at the store, like filet mignon...

Guy, how long did you age them?

Like to go 3 days minimum, 5 to 7 day is good, you can go longer, up to 2 weeks, just watch for color change of meat.

Italian dressing..... What a shame.

Aged duck, breasted, seasoned, seared in a sauce pan over high heat until medium rare (with scrambled eggs) is on my top 10 list of food I would want to have stashed if stranded on a desert island. (Lamb chops being #1)

Nowadays, most folks wouldn't eat duck or wild game for that matter. And I've noticed a lot of kids in the youth groups I work with have very different eating habits and tastes in foods than we did growing up. Kids have gotten EXTREMELY picky about what they like/don't like. And the parents don't seem to mind if their child's idea of a good meal is Chik Filet or McD.

Bread, but with the crust removed.
Salad, without lettuce (yea, I had one of those WTF moments)
Chicken, but only if it doesn't look like it came from a real live a chicken (nuggets only, no fried chicken, cause it looks like it came from an animal).
Any vegetables that aren't green,
Food that has never been touched by another person (HTH did they survive to childhood
Fish out of a can, And fish sticks.

I've been aging them for 10-15 days. On the warmer days I hung some for a day or two to cool them faster. Pluck whole, salt/pepper then braise. Eat them with rice an gravy. Good stuff.