What's farm-raised duck taste like?

[SamMiller]

I'm interested in raising animals to slaughter, but I really feel like I just couldn't do chickens. I like them too much. As for ducks.... not as much.

I've heard wild duck is gamey and greasy, is farm-raised any different?

Or in general, are there any non-chicken birds that taste like chicken?

 

[Aquira]

I've only had duck once so I can't answer that part (I was young and it was in a country with quite a different culture to what I was used to, but I certainly didn't enjoy it lol), but quail are a pretty decent alternative to chicken.

 

[DatCampG]

I'm interested in raising animals to slaughter, but I really feel like I just couldn't do chickens. I like them too much. As for ducks.... not as much.

I've heard wild duck is gamey and greasy, is farm-raised any different?

Or in general, are there any non-chicken birds that taste like chicken?

Peppered duck breast is good with red wine sauce!

 

[Isadora]

I love duck!! We have raised pekins for meat this year and they are quite delicious. I wouldn't call them gamey. The meat tastes darker compared to chicken, but not in an unpleasant way. I think the main things is to make sure to butcher at a good age (we did our pekins a tiny bit before they were 8 weeks old) and don't overcook it! Nothing sadder than dry duck.

@U_Stormcrow anything to add?

 

[3KillerBs]

Duck from the grocery store is all dark meat and the skin can be very greasy.

IMO, when cooking you should treat duck or goose more like pork than like chicken or turkey. I haven't had backyard-raised duck yet.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yup! Thanks for inviting me to the conversation, @Isadora!

So... Farm raised duck tastes like dark meat (duh!), closer to turkey than chicken I think, though I do NOT have a refined palatte (in fact, i have almost no sense of taste for reasons unimportant here, and I'm not just talking about my fashion sense).

Supermarket duck is young, yes, but like CX, its raised on a deliberately high fat/high carb diet to create that thick padded layer of subcutaneous fat you find in SMart birds. I process my duck older, often MUCH older - and like Chicken, at greater age you need differing methods. Free ranging the ducks does a couple things - it exercises the muscles resulting in greater depth of flavor, increases toughness, slows down weight gain, contributes to "gamey-ness", and helps redistribute some of the fat into intra-muscular, rather than subcutaneous locations. I know all those sound like terrible things, but...

or perhaps BUT!!!!

I take older duck (6-8 months) and treat it like beef - remove, grind, season for sausage. With some Legg's snack stick seasoning, it makes an excelent seasoned patty, some of the tastiest hamburger you will ever eat. Also makes great sausage, and the breast muscles are excellent for that. It also makes a very nice hearty stew with wild rice or barley. The legs and wings are relatively small, I use them for stock most often - two carcasses to a pot with about an onion and a half, three medium carrots, two celery stalks, around 6 cloves of garlic, a heavy palm of salt, and around 25 cranks of fresh black pepper. Add water to just cover, simmer overnight, then crack the lid in the AM and bare simmer to further reduce. EXCELLENT stock. Skim the top, strain the solids, jar. Will gelatinize in the fridge.

As you might expect, it makes great "chicken noodle soup" - return to a boil and cook your noodles in it. Add fresh veg if desired. Mopre importantly, it pairs well with citrus notes. Its already strong in flavor and has a lot of body. Add ginger, a few grains of thai chiles (bird's eye peppers) or paper thin sliced japeno, thai basil, and use it as the base for pho. Also stands up well to Indian curries.

Young duck (8-12 weeks) the breast plates should be prepared like steaks, just barely medium rare, they tend to be a bit lean - and while searing the cut skin makes for a crackly tasty bacon, getting the fat to render correctly in the pan and not be rubbery takes a skilled hand at the stove. Legs and wings can be brined and smoked. and of course the whole thing can be oven roasted with an orange sauce or similar. Even younger, you can prepare like cornish hens, again, citrus glaze. Improtantly, while these are more flavorful and less fatty (under skin) than an Smart bird, that fat has partially moved between the muscle fibers, so you want to make certain your glaze has some presence on the bitter/acid scale, not just sugary sweetness. Orange marmalade, raspberry preserves or jam, lemon, or even jalapeno jelly. But stay away from the very sweet grape, currant (black or red), peach, etc. A tsp to a Tblsp of apple cider, red wine, or white whine vinegar whisked into the jelly before glazing can help, though the skin quality can suffer if you do it to early. Crisp, then glaze, like making good hot wings.

That's what comes first to mind, anyways. If I think of anything else, i'll come back and add it.

 

[3KillerBs]

so you want to make certain your glaze has some presence on the bitter/acid scale,

When I first looked up cooking duck/goose I found that Germans stuff it with sauerkraut. True to our ethnic heritage, we LOVE kraut so that's what I do -- stuff it with a kraut seasoned with caraway seed.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

When I first looked up cooking duck/goose I found that Germans stuff it with sauerkraut. True to our ethnic heritage, we LOVE kraut so that's what I do -- stuff it with a kraut seasoned with caraway seed.

I've not tried it, but I absolutely understand why it works.

I like to pair mine with earthiness - mushrooms, wild rice, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc - things that will themselves pair well with the glaze, but have no fattiness of their own. Much as I love artichokes and hollandaise, the choke has too much veggie fat for it to work. same with avocado - unless I was to make a duck taco with avocado, then leave off the sour cream and cheese, rely on cilantro and a bright salsa.

In theory, duck with preserved lemon should work well too - I just never have preserved lemon to cook with - maybe once my trees grow up and start bearing fruit.

 

[3KillerBs]

I've not tried it, but I absolutely understand why it works.

I like to pair mine with earthiness - mushrooms, wild rice, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc - things that will themselves pair well with the glaze, but have no fattiness of their own. Much as I love artichokes and hollandaise, the choke has too much veggie fat for it to work. same with avocado - unless I was to make a duck taco with avocado, then leave off the sour cream and cheese, rely on cilantro and a bright salsa.

In theory, duck with preserved lemon should work well too - I just never have preserved lemon to cook with - maybe once my trees grow up and start bearing fruit.

I'm not really a fan of meat with sweetness unless it's paired with heavy smoke such as a smokey BBQ sauce or a homemade brown-sugar-and-pineapple ham glaze.

The one time I had the opportunity to try duck ala orange in a restaurant I was sorely disappointed in the flavor, which was exceedingly sugary and entirely covered up the flavor of the meat. It was a good restaurant too so I have no reason to believe it was ill-prepared.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'm not really a fan of meat with sweetness unless it's paired with heavy smoke such as a smokey BBQ sauce or a homemade brown-sugar-and-pineapple ham glaze.

The one time I had the opportunity to try duck ala orange in a restaurant I was sorely disappointed in the flavor, which was exceedingly sugary and entirely covered up the flavor of the meat. It was a good restaurant too so I have no reason to believe it was ill-prepared.

Yup, common complaint with a l'orange. I prefer something leaning closer to sweet and sour, w/o all the heavy breading.

The French love their sauces (I half joke that they were developed in the middle ages to cover the flavors of rancid meat - but only half joke).

The Chinese, otoh, have been raising pekin duck for centuries and offer, I believe, a superior presentation of it. The theory is similar, but the preparation of the orient is superior in my view.