Thursday, April 28, 2011

Wild duck time

The duck shooting season begins on 1 May. For some time I've had three dead ducks in my freezer. Harvey's brother Bruce is a very good shot, and each year brings down more ducks than they can cope with. So I was the lucky recipient of these.
         I've tried various ways of cooking wild duck. The slow cooker method works the best, but it can only cope with one duck at a time, so it's no good for more than two people, given that wild ducks don't have nearly as much flesh on them as domestic ducks.
         So I had another scout around the net and came up with a brilliant recipe by none other than Steve Logan and Al Brown of Logan Brown fame. What's more, it required precisely three ducks. I organised a dinner and planned my campaign.

Oh dear - I had this whole post written and saved and then Blogger went awol, wouldn't let me in, and when I finally got back most of it had gone. Now it's 10.30 pm and I haven't the energy to rewrite it all! Have a look at the recipe here. I made duck stock with the carcasses and roasting pan veges instead of chicken stock, used considerably less stock than they say so as not to drown it (maybe they had bigger ducks), and less flour to thicken, and served it with potato and parsnip puree instead of pasta. The consensus: it was magnificent - and even better next day. Hard to photograph, though - here's the best I could do. And now I'm going to bed.

       

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was just thinking of making duck and chestnut pie but I will have to buy mine with no hunter in the family. Wondered whether you would like to join the http://www.foodbloggersnz.com association? It's a site to promote all nz food bloggers, events and an upcoming conference.