All week, the idea of braised duck has creped into my thoughts.  Yesterday I decided to buy the duck and begin to break it down.  Now, there are several things I needed to do before I could braise the duck.  First, I skinned and butchered the duck, making three piles of stuff;  the skinned legs and breast meat; the trimmed duck skin and fat; and the carcass and wings.

I put the legs and breast meat into a light brine and put it in the fridge.

Rendered Duck Fat:
 I then took a small Dutch oven and put all the duck fat in, covered it and set it on low heat for about two hours.  When I returned to it, I had liquid fat and deep-fried duck skin (aka Cracklin’s).   I took the liquid fat and poured it into a mason jar.  Then I salted the cracklin’s and – at the suggestion of Chad, one of my MySpace Chef Friends,  I heated some honey and tossed the cracklin’s in to honey, then dusted them with a touch of cayenne pepper – YUM!

Duck Stock

Ingredients:
• Duck carcass
• Duck wings
• 1 large onion, rough chop
• 3 carrots (1 1/2 if it is large)
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 leek, rough chopped and cleaned (green and white part)
• 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
• 1/3 cup fresh parsley
• 32 oz chicken stock

Method:
• Preheat oven to 500 degrees
• Place carcass, wings, giblets, in the bottom of a roasting pan and roast until golden brown, turn over, finish roasting
• Add, veggies, duck parts, chicken stock and enough water just to cover everything
• Bring to a simmer on top of the stove and allow to cook on low heat for about 12 hours (or overnight), skimming fat often.
• Strain and use/store.

I’m probably going to braise the duck tomorrow… I’ll post a blog/pics then.