I just watched Jamie Oliver make this the other day and can't stop thinking about it. His duck breast did have skin which he seared, but the dressing/rub that he put on them looked out of this world, so maybe you wouldn't iss the skin!
Jane

Here is a link that might be useful: Jamie Oliver

Couldn't just snitch a bit of the already rendered fat for them when searing them? I just can't imagine adulterating duck with anything else. Gosh! Now, my mouth is watering for a good orange duck sauce. Mmm. and white steamed rice.

:)

Smoke em if you got em

You don't need a smoker to smoke duck breasts.

There are many recipes on the Internet. Find one that is easy for you.

dcarch

Oh, dcarch, smoking is a good idea. I once split a smoked duck sandwich with a friend while on a 2-day trip with our boat to Sag Harbor. We splurged on a transient slip & spent Saturday afternoon window shopping. Wish I could remember the restaurant? I'll think on it...maybe, it's still on the menu? It had sliced smoked duck breast served on sourdough, a sour cherry reduction with crushed almonds & some sort of liqueur, & arugula. Simple but quite good. Had a little bite to it...might have been some jalapeno in the cherry reduction.

The duck confit sounds awesome. Something I never make. Duck is a meal I usually save for when we're eating out. Maybe, I should suggest we give it a try at home.

/tricia

I just remember another impressive painless one.

Look up a beef Wellington recipe that you like, make that into a duck Wellington, but don't use bacon or prosciutto. That would take away the wonder duck flavor.

You can make it easy by using store puff pastry and canned mushrooom sauce.

Skinless duck breast is perfect for this quick, easy and extraordinary dish.

dcarch

Blast you, arley et al! You've lured me into a duck hungering. Off to the Chinese market.

I now possess four duck hindquarters, a couple small tubs of duck fat, and three whole frozen ducks. The whole ducks are stashed in the freezer for later - there was a sale, I figured ten buck ducks were a good deal - so I'll make confit with the hindquarters and tub of fat.

Question: to reduce the amount of fat I need, can I put the legs and fat in a gallon ziplock bag and put that in a crockpot of water, set on low? Since the water won't exceed 212 F, and might hold a lower temperature if I leave the lid off, will the plastic ziplock be okay?

Ten bucks a duck was a steal. Good for you.

What I ended up doing was treating them sort of like ahi tuna: slicing the duck breasts lengthwise in shapes roughly like sticks of butter, then searing them in a neutral oil (grapeseed--high smoke point) such that the outside was mildly browned while the inside was still rosy pink, then throwing in some drained canned (!) mushrooms. It's a tribute to the wonderful-osity of duck that it came out great. You don't want to overcook duck breast--like filet mignon, overcook it and it tastes a little liverish.

My next adventure will be to buy two more frozen ducks, confit the legs in the fat I've already rendered, and make duck prosciutto with the skin-on breasts. According to the book 'Charcuterie', it's easy. You salt the duck breasts to cure them (no nitrites/nitrates needed), rinse them off, wrap in cheesecloth and hang in a 50-60 degree area for a week to ten days. My cellar will be in that range in another month or so.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions.

John, the link is to an article on Michael Ruhlman's blog on making duck confit. He's the guy who wrote the book 'Charcuterie'. Notice in the discussions that some people make confit in plastic bags, especially if they have a sous vide setup. The guy that recommended that mentioned that you don't need nearly as much fat doing it that way.

In his book, he notes that cooking the confit at a low temp for several hours is preferable to higher temp cooking. My oven does go down to 180, and I cooked the legs in fat at that temp for 10 hours. I won't know how good they are for a month; he recommends allowing the confit to 'ripen' for at least a few weeks.

Perhaps if you had a slow cooker that had a temp less than boiling...

In the book, Ruhlman also recommends using a small amount of pink salt (a.k.a. Prague Powder #1--it consists of 93.75% sodium chloride and 6.25% sodium nitrite--they color it pink so you don't confuse it with regular table salt) if you plan to have the confit stored for months before consuming.

Here is a link that might be useful: duck confit instructions

Thanks! Your duck projects sound mouthwatering.

I realized that I can make a sort of fitted tub from aluminium foil, that will go in my crockpot and allow submerging the duck legs with less duck fat than the entire crockpot would require.

FOAS tells me the ziplock people claim their bags are foodsafe to 212 F, but I am not wholly convinced. Duck fat is $7 per 8 oz tub here, so I don't want to use a ton of it.

I'm going to set up my crockpot in the basement tonight and try this. My oven goes to 170 F but the weather is too hot to run my oven for long.

As for the whole ducks, my dad is supposed to send me his process for crispy roast duck. My recollection from childhood was that he went to junkyards and got three or four toasters, pulled out the heating elements, attached those to the inside of a tall steel chemical drum that had once contained something foodsafe, like PCBs. The duck was crucified on a cross of old coat hangers. It hung, vertically, in the drum between the elements. The fat rendered out, the skin was desperately crisp, and the flavour was worshipful. On the third day the duck rose. But no-one was home, so a fringe religion was not born.

We kids were warned to stay away from the contraption, since the electrical connections were simply bare wires twisted together on the garage floor. You know, amidst the cans of gasoline and old paint. It is a wonder we survived childhood.

I'll mimic his approach using the rotisserie attachment on my gas grill, with a pan to catch the dripppings. What I don't know is what secret rub or sauce he may have used - you know, the toad claws and newt testes stuff. I know from char sui experiments that you can get the ''lucky red'' color using beet juice, instead of the red dye number 40 that your local Chinese restaurant uses.

dcarch, I'm sure you've made crispy roast duck Chinese style - would you have any tips to share? Thanks.

Here's a very simple way to cook duck from 'The Joy of Cooking'. In essence, you cook the duck for a long time at a low temp, then gather up all the fat which has exuded out (there will be lots), then raise the temp of the oven for a while. It's foolproof and very little work. While it takes about 4 hours to cook, you're not doing anything during most of that time. I'll often cook a few of these for holidays for people to sample in addition to whatever else I have going on. There are never any leftovers.

Crispy Roast Duck

1 duckling, 4 to 5 lbs, thawed
Salt
Preheat the oven to 250ÃÂ and place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Remove the duck from its plastic wrapper and rinse under cold water, then pat dry with paper towels. Rub a little salt in the cavity, and sprinkle a little on the skin. Remove any excessive fat from around the opening and the neck. With a sharp paring knife or a skewer, make 20 or 30 small incisions in the skin into the fat. Hold the knife parallel to the skin so you penetrate the skin into the fatty layer, but you don't want to penetrate the flesh.
If you have a v-rack for a roasting pan, place the rack in the pan and place the duck, breast side down, on the rack. (But if you don't have a v-rack, don't worry. Just place the duck breast side down in the pan.) Place the pan in the oven and roast for 3 hours. Yes, three hours. Every hour check the duck and prick the skin a little more to let more fat escape. After three hours, drain the fat out of the pan (don't discard it!) and turn the oven up to 350ÃÂ, and turn the duck breast side up. Roast for another 45 minutes. Remove to a platter and let the duck sit for 10 minutes before carving. You can make a gravy out of the juices and bits in the pan if you want.

If you don't have a v-rack, you can cook the duck without one but the skin won't be as crispy. It'll still taste great, though.
Serve with whatever wine you like; the meat is hearty enough to stand up to a full bodied red like a Pinot Noir or Cabernet, but if you prefer a lighter red like a Zinfandel or a good white, go for it.

Hmm--when I cut and pasted that recipe, the symbol for degrees got translated into an E with an umlaut. You start the duck at 250 degrees for 3 hours, drain the fat, turn the duck breast side up and roast for another 45 minutes or so at 350 degrees.