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We were curious: could you make duck on the grill? Grilling season is just about over here, as the weather is getting quite
cold, so we tried it tonight, using a recipe for duck with cherries from Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling. |
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| We had a few Halloween decorations on the table. |
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| We invited our friends Alice and Byron. |
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| Duck with cherries, steamed broccoli, and bread & butter. |
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We cooked a whole duck, which we had cut into serving pieces and partially boned. (The recipe actually is for just the duck breasts.)
Before grilling, you dry-rub the meat with salt & spices, score it, and sear it in a frying pan. |
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| Len also made bread to eat with dinner. |
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From the neck and the trimmings, along with some vegetables, I made
duck stock, which was an ingredient for the sauce. |
The cooking procedure for the duck could be simple, if you purchased already boned duck breasts and used reconstituted chicken stock as the recipe suggests. But we enjoyed cutting up the duck and using the bones and trimmings for stock: now there's lots of stock in the fridge for a nice cold-weather soup. The sauce ingredients -- dried cherries, stock, shallots, balsamic vinegar, and ruby port -- created a delicious sweet-sour contrast to the rich duck meat with a subtle smoky flavor from the grill.
My husband would love this meal! But we won't be making any duck - he had to eat it in a restaurant. Looks like a good time with a good meal!
ReplyDeleteLooks yummy. We grill all year round, except on the very, very coldest of nights -- and that's only because the pressure in the gas tank is affected and the grill doesn't easily heat up.
ReplyDeleteI do love duck, duck confit, duck soup, roast duck and duck smoked with tea leaves - which you do in a wok. So your meal looks just delicious to me. The bad news is that Bob does not care for it, ah well.
ReplyDeleteI rue the end of grilling season (although we have been able to grill out in late November). Great idea to do the whole duck.
ReplyDeleteThe only issue I can see with barbecuing duck is that a lot of fat drips off and might stsrt a fire... But it will be delicious. Cheers from Carole's chatter
ReplyDeleteYes, fat dripping into the fire is an issue with duck as well as with other fat-containing meats. If you look at the photo of the duck on the grill, you can see that it’s cooking over a drip pan rather than over the open fire. That plus the pre-grill searing takes care of the flare-up problem. Books like the one by Meathead have lots of clever ways to barbecue!
ReplyDeleteThe duck looks delicious - I love the sauce.
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