duck hunters...

post up your fav way to clean a duck...
also add in teal and geese...
I've tried diff ways, just curious what most do...

I'm old school.....
pluck 'em, cut the rear end and gut 'em
after you cut the feet, wings, and neck off, roast 'em and enjoy.....

I've never cooked them whole like aggie...i always just debreast them. I need to see how some people do it so I don't waste any meat.

The teal I wrap up into poppers, but the mallards I cooked on the stove top--- seared for 3 minutes on each side...taste just like a steak. so good

Pintail, teal and canvas back are best plucked and roasted.

I use the waxing method.

Most others peel skin off and expose the breast and cut it out.

I usually make sausage out of my ducks, so I employ the following method to get just the breast and filet it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqpHYi74NoA

Every once in a while I'll do what Aggie does to roast a duck.

Pop off the head cut the wings and rip the breast off like a dove, or I breast out the meat.

Age them for a week and breast them or wax them whole

Age them a week, breast them with skin on, cook them on hot cast iron with a little conola oil, like 2 minutes on each side, serve med-rare, like filet mignon...



You don't want to over cook, but you want to try and render down that fat on the skin side, get it as crisp as possible, but you will not get it good enough to where the skin gets tender enough to easily chew it up, but it adds a ton flavor, I try and get a little skin with each bite.

X2 and my nonhunting neighbors love it when I do it in the driveway!

I will pluck and breast mine out 99% of the time and leave the skin on. The other 1% I pluck the whole thing to roast.

someone explain age... the aging im thinking of is probably not the same as yall are describing lol

Pull leg and thigh meat as well!

Ageing for me is, laying the birds on thier backs for 3-5 days in the fridge. Mine always go in gallon size ziploc's and get cleaned days later.

I breast mine. Then age them for 5-7 days in a plastic baggie with water in the refrigerator. The first day I change the water every 6 hrs. The rest of the days I change the water once a day.

http://www.ducks.org/hunting/waterfowl-recipes-wild-game-cooking/dry-aging-versus-brining

I pluck mine. There is so much more you can do with them vs breasting them.

breast, tenderize and chicken fry.

For you roasting guys, do you leave it rare to medium rare as well or slow cook till done?

okay sweet! ill give it a try this season thats for sure!! this post will need to be brought back up again

Can you talk more about how you make sausage from duck?

Do you just save up a bunch of meat and then add it in with deer or hog meat or do you just use straight duck meat to make sausage. I've been curious about doing this for the last couple of years.

Guy are you aging them after you breast them skin on or whole birds fresh from the hunt...then breasting them?

I do age them whole, back down, on news paper...I got a man refrigerator in the garage just for it ...




Closely watch temp, like to keep right at 37 but don't want it to freeze. They will age like this fine up to 2 weeks. I have gone longer, but they start to discolor after 2 weeks, but never had a duck gone bad, your nose is your friend.

I age whole just for convenience. My preference is to breast them after after the hunt, clean very good, get feathers off, clean blood clots out... And I give a good rinse with water, run water till it goes clear... I used to soak in water for days, brine (as can be seen in 2nd pic), I think all that is worthless I don't mess with that any more and I think you are better off not doing it. I put breast in a big tupperware, where it can lay flat and breast are not stack on each other, so it can breath... Season, normally just salt and pepper. I put paper towel in there, to soak up excess juice, but not so much it goes dry, but stays moist, and even marinades in its own seasoned blood juice, but not too much juice. I give the breast a flip every day, and every day you can tell a difference in the texture of the meat. It goes from a rubbery texture to more of texture of a steak you buy at the store. I think aging helps with the puckering, but I have yet to find a formula to eliminate it.

When I first start aging was not much info on internet, a lot more now.. The link I posted above I found today on aging duck, link below I google "aging meat" this was second from the top, good info..

"Why dry-aged beef tastes better:
All fresh beef is aged for at least few days and up to several weeks to allow enzymes naturally present in the meat to break down the muscle tissue, resulting in improved texture and flavor. These days, most beef is aged in plastic shrink-wrap—a process known as wet-aging. Dry-aged beef, on the other hand, is exposed to air so dehydration can further concentrate the meat’s flavor. It’s a more expensive process than wet-aging, however, because the meat loses weight from dehydration, and it also must be trimmed of its completely dried exterior."

http://www.finecooking.com/article/how-to-dry-age-beef-at-home

When you roast your duck, you cook it well-done or med-rare? I never liked them whole, and done it many ways, but maybe I never got it right. What I have found is very little meat on wings and leg, and it knots up so tough it is not good. I used to cut legs off, collect a bunch, then cook in crook pot till tender, that was good. But never had a duck leg good enough to eat unless I cooked the hell out of it so it went tender.

When I make sausage I do a 50/50 mix of duck and pork shoulder/butt (e.g 4 lbs of duck wth 4 lbs of pork). The fat from the pork adds flavor to the sausage since the duck breasts are so lean. I'll grind the meats together with an attachment on my wife's mixer and mix with spices, cheese, and jalapeños. You'll want to make "test patties" before you move onto casing the mix. You can get casings from your local butcher or Cabela's carries some. After getting the right flavor, I put the mixture into my stuffer and make as many 10" long, 1" thick links as the mixture allows. I'll prick each link a bunch of times with a needle to keep them from exploding while cooking and put them in the fridge overnight before cooking/freezing.

THAT, my man, is the secret to fixing one of the best meals on the planet.

Anyone can shoot a duck. But it a rare man that knows what the heck to do with it after he kills it.

I've experimented with vary degrees of aging my birds. A couple days to two months. And I always age the bird whole. Guts and all.

Whole bird in a lightweight grocery bag, tucked in the fridge two weeks, is the best meat on the wing.

I guess I'm old school, the sausage my family made back in the day used pork & seasonings as the foundation, and various cuts of meat (wild & farm raise) for character. Putting filet mignon, ribeye, chuckeye, or any other cut consider "prime" would have been (in their perspective) wasteful. And they considered sirloin fit for chicken frying, not much else unless it was the liftter, eye or strip. But duck/goose breast isn't comparable. Aged properly, seasoned pan seared duck/goose/crane breast filets & tenderloin is lean, tender, and packs a lot of flavor. Comparable to the best prime beef.

Age a duck whole 2-4 weeks, breast it, marinate it for a day or two, dust it a light dusting of flour to crust it and the seasoning, then sear on high heat till med rare. It is as good as the best cuts at a churascaria. And as tender a cut of meat you'll ever eat.

I've had cattlemen think it was USDA prime and as good if not better than the grass fed angus in my folks pastures. It's that good.

Roast whole duck .......an entirely different beast. Not comparable.