We choose the "victim"
Well, let's go choose a duck - now they'rein the store, and at the market there are plenty of them. Just like brides in the city of Ivanovo. For roasting whole, it is better to choose a younger duck. It will cook faster and will be softer. The shelves of stores are mainly filled with duck carcasses from poultry farms. There, ducks are fed for 60 days, so you don’t have to worry and choose by size or price. Domestic duck is tastier and healthier than factory-bred duck, but ducklings are kept throughout the summer season, and by autumn-winter they can be up to six months old. And even retired breeding old ladies also have to be put somewhere - in soup or roast. A young duck weighs up to 2 kg, has light skin, and yellow paws. The color of the fat is white. An old duck has yellowish skin, orange paws. The color of the fat is yellow. The older the duck, the richer the color of the paws and fat. The weight of such a duck can reach 3-5 kg.
Treatment of carcass for cooking
Let's start processing the duck.Frozen carcasses take a long time to defrost, so it is better to have up to 12 hours to defrost. If we bought a fresh or chilled duck - no questions. Remove the giblets. Do not throw them away, they will come in handy. Scald the duck with boiling water, remove the "stumps" - parts of the feathers that look like hedgehog needles. When you have carried out this procedure, dry the carcass with a towel and singe it over the fire. Be sure to remove the fat gland at the base of the tail. Its contents can spoil any dish. The basic cooking recipes are the same as for any meat or poultry:
- Baking whole duck;
- Preparation of chopped duck;
- Duck soups and broths.
Baking whole
Before baking, you need to separate the bony parts.wings. They will dry out and will not be edible. And so they can be added to the giblets in order to cook broth someday. We do the same with the neck and legs. We remove the fat from the abdomen. The duck is greased with garlic, crushed in a press and mixed with salt and pepper. Then the carcass needs to be wrapped in film and left for a couple of hours. The garlic mass can be replaced with mustard or the duck can be rubbed with a mixture of herbs. This is done so that the meat is saturated with the aroma of spices. And mustard slightly softens the meat. If we plan to simply bake the duck, without stuffing, then all that remains is to wait until it marinates. And if you decide to bake a stuffed duck, then we will prepare the stuffing. Recipe options for fillings:
- Cereals;
- Fruit;
- Vegetables.
Minced cereal You can prepare the following filling:2/3 cup buckwheat, duck or chicken giblets, raw egg, onion, garlic. Boil buckwheat lightly. Put raw giblets in a meat grinder, you can only use poultry liver. Finely chop the onion. Crush the garlic with a knife and chop. Mix everything, beat in the egg. Heat the mixture slightly in a frying pan with fat until excess moisture evaporates. Add salt and pepper to taste. Buckwheat is a good substitute for rice and millet. Fruit filling A traditional recipe is duck with apples or quince. You will need 4-5 apples or quince for one duck. It is better to choose sour apples with dense pulp. Antonovka or Simirenko renet are good. Cut the fruit into quarters, remove the seed chambers. Cut each quarter in half. The pieces will be just right. Apples can be supplemented with dried fruits: prunes, figs, dried apricots. They should be pre-soaked in wine, cognac or poured with boiling water for a few minutes to soften. Different variations of fruit combinations in the filling will give flavor nuances in each individual case. Duck with vegetables Vegetable fillings can be varied, combining them with spices or creating a colorful set of vegetables, your own recipes. For example, cut carrots into large slices, potatoes into 2 cm cubes, add chopped celery, small red onions, whole cloves of garlic, black olives. Sauerkraut goes well with duck. It should be stewed a little with the addition of spices and onions. Here, too, various variations of recipes are possible with the addition of fried mushrooms, smoked meats, apples or quince (they should be cut smaller than for duck with apples), prunes. Stuff the duck with the filling. Connect the edges of the belly and sew them with a thread. You can pin them with wooden toothpicks. It's time to put it in the oven. A few secrets of roasting a duck. First of all, the oven should be preheated to 250 degrees. Keep it in this heat for the first 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 200 degrees for another 10 minutes, and finally cook it at 180 degrees. The second secret - if the duck is fried on a baking sheet, without parchment, a bag or foil, it should be poured with juice and fat that accumulates in the baking sheet about once every 15 minutes. You can easily determine the readiness of the duck by piercing it with a knife. The juice that flows out will be transparent when the duck is baked enough. It is not advisable to overkeep it in the oven, the meat will become dry. The duck baked in the oven is ready. Take it out and put it on a plate. We remove the threads or toothpicks, take the stuffing out with a spoon and spread it around the duck. We admire the result and… call everyone to the table.
Soups and broths from ducklings
Baked ducks are not for everyday usemeals, only for a holiday. How to enjoy duck on weekdays? First of all - you can cook soups and broths. The duck is too big to cook it whole, like a chicken. For a family, 1 kg of duck is enough for soup or broth. To cook shurpa according to the recipe, divide the duck meat with bones into 5-6 parts and fry, laying the pieces skin side down. When the fat has melted, turn over. Add 3 chopped onions and the same amount of carrots, fry, stew for about half an hour. Then add water and cook shurpa. After an hour, add about five potatoes, bay leaves, peppercorns, and salt. When the potatoes are ready, add dill and parsley. If you add half a glass of rice, millet or buckwheat to the broth while cooking it, and then do the same as when cooking shurpa, you will get a "hunter's" soup. But we will not admit to anyone that we bought a duck in the supermarket around the corner? You can make borscht or shchi with duck broth. There are as many recipes for this as there are housewives. Let each one cook her own. And for broth with noodles, you can also take duck instead of chicken. You just need to remember that you will have to cook this soup longer.
Second course options
What's for second course?Well, of course - duck. You can cook it with bones, according to the recipe for chakhokhbili or roast. For roast, cut 1 kg of duck into portions and fry without fat - the fat will melt out of the duck. Add chopped onion - 1-2 heads, fry a little more. Fry 5-6 medium potatoes in pieces separately until golden brown. And then combine the meat and potatoes in a roasting pan, add carrots for beauty - diced, bay leaves and pepper. Put half a glass of sour cream in the same roasting pan and pour in boiling water - about a glass. Heat until boiling, add salt and reduce heat - let it simmer slowly for about an hour. If you want something Caucasian and spicy, let it not be a dagger, but a variation of the Georgian chakhokhbili recipe. Let's not be boring - where is the pheasant that is used to make chakhokhbili? And we have a duck. Cut it up, put it in a duck pan, fry it under the lid. Peel and finely chop about five tomatoes. Or take a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste. Cut five onions and 2 bell peppers into thick half rings. Add all the vegetables to the duck one by one, at intervals of 10 minutes. Salt to taste. Simmer for about an hour. Cilantro and basil will give the dish the necessary flavor - let's add them too. Hmeli-suneli, hot pepper and garlic at the very end of cooking - so that the aroma does not disappear. So, by replacing the types of meat recommended by tradition, you can cook countless dishes of national cuisines from duck. Try it, it will be delicious and always new.
