Maggie's Farm

Cooking  a Wild Duck

Or any duck, even from the supermarket... here are the two basic approaches for the breast or for the entire bird:

1. Cut off the breasts carefully, retaining all of the meat and keeping the skin on. Marinate in wine and various herbs for a few hours. Or in milk.

2. Then take the carcass, boil in water with plenty of good wine and/or port and herbs, onions, carrots, celery and garlic, a little sugar, etc. for a few hours, until thick. Simmer the heck out of it for a good sauce. Then strain it and cook until thick on the stove.

3. Saute the breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper, in olive oil and butter on high heat very briefly, a couple of minutes to rare, both sides. DO NOT OVERCOOK.

4. Take the reduction from #2 above, and pour over breasts sliced on the bias.

OR:

1. Take the entire bird, season with salt and pepper and put in oven on a rack, put a sliced onion and a sliced apple inside, and cover with a couple of strips of bacon. Wild birds are short on fat, but store-bought duck is full of fat. Bake at 550 for 25 minutes - rare. Duck needs to be rare for the full wild, livery flavor to be fully appreciated.

2. Slice the breast, cut off the legs and serve them too, and pour a thickened reduction of wine/port/herbs (see above) over the slices. (Hopefully you have a spare duck carcass to put into that reduction).

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You can garnish both of the above with orange slices, but do not cook an orange near a good duck. Too strong. Serve either approach with wild rice and sauteed root veggies - carrots, parsnips, celery root, etc. A few sauteed figs are nice, or sauteed pears. Whatever you do, save or use the reduction from the duck carcass - it is a base for a fine sauce for anything, like chicken. It can be frozen if you don't use it all.

The diving ducks (red-heads, canvasbacks, blue-bills, etc.) are, in my opinion, the most delicious with their liver/anchovy flavor, but some prefer the mallards and other puddle-ducks with their milder flavor. Chacun a son gout. But try to appreciate the wild ones - they concentrate the call of the wild in their flesh. Yes, you can serve with cranberry sauce - anything with feathers is enhanced by cranberries.