Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Night of the Living Duck

Duck is an animal that lots of people do not like to eat. I don't know why. The reoccurring phrase I always hear is (in a whiny voice) "it’s too greasy". Well that might be true if you get your duck only at bad Chinese food joints, the word Ding How comes to mind. The problem is no one cooks duck at their own house. Duck is not as readily available as chicken and not as conveniently packaged. You'd be pretty fucking hard pressed to find a 12 pack of duck legs or a 6 pack of duck breasts in the poultry section of Safeway, although it would be pretty goddamn awesome. Instead you get a whole, frozen duckling stored in the bottom left of the freezer section with all of the "weird" shit nobody eats (i.e. liver, tripe, chitlins). This is a compounded problem. One, people begin to associate duck meat with offal meats and B, the duck comes as a whole and generally most Americans do not know how to break down poultry. This is a shame because duck is versatile and can be used in myriad ways. Over the next couple of weeks I will post a project I recently finished involving duck. I bought 3 ducks (thanks for the rip-off Springfield farms!) and used every piece of the duck I could. After breaking the ducks down I used the legs to make confit, the breasts I used for a duck terrine and duck prosciutto, the carcass was used for stock, the skin and fat trimmings went into rendering down for duck fat (that revolutionizer of potatoes), and finally the giblets (hearts, livers, and gizzards) were used for salads and spreads. With the proper instruction, it is possible to utilize all that you can from this humble yet noble animal. Stay tuned true believers to learn how to make sure you get the most quack for our buck. If you have any questions about what else to do with duck, or even how you like it, just let me know.

On a totally random note; did anyone see the commercial for the new Marco Pierre White TV show on NBC? People think Gordon Ramsey is a fucking nut job, well wait until they get ahold of uncle Marco. He is certifiably bat shit fucking Mad with a capital crazy. He is like a savant Poet and does had an artist's heart, but I think he might be much for Americans. When people are expecting Ramsey's childish tantrums and they get White's Hannibal Lecter rants it will be interesting. I can't wait, I love MPW.

Rock! Johnny

2 comments:

misssamala said...

am i the only one who finds it funny that "offal" and "awful" are homophones?

Unknown said...

yeah....... its not really the best word to use for really yummy food that just come from strange parts of the animals. It's like renaming cheese curdled milk solids. It ain't gonna sell itself on that name.