Crispy duck skin

Hello,

Is it possible to cook duck skin for a long period of time sous vide, then using meat glue re-attach it to the duck breast that has also been cooked in a water-bath, so it will become extra crispy when I bring it back in service?.

Any advice on cooking times/temps for the skin would be greatly appreciated, thanks

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FrankM_3301

How do you want to serve the duck? Why remove the skin in the first place? I have had success cooking duck breast, with skin on, in water bath....crisp skin with sear or deep fryer before serving.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I don't think meat glue will work with cooked proteins only raw.

Chris_Young_80640

Meat glue will bind cooked proteins, although the bond is weaker.

Brendan_Lee_56950

How much weaker? And is the application process different so as to avoid the wet dog smell when serving? I'm curious about this because I've only ever used it on raw products.

Chris_Young_80640

The wet dog smell dissipates very quickly, so I have never found that to be an issue. And the bond is usually strong enough, you just need to take care to make sure that you really compress the cuts of meat together.

In this case, the original question was about par-cooking duck skin and then gluing it back on. You'll get it to bind, but the bond won't be the problem. Based on a lot of experimentation during the second Perfection series with Heston, you'll find that the cooked skin is so fragile it just shreds when you try to manipulate it. But even if you manage that, you still won't get crisper skin. For crisp, you need to get nearly all of the water out, and even after that first cooking, there is still plenty of water left in the skin. What I advocate, if crisp skin is a major goal, is either something like the technique we use for our ultimate crisp chicken on the ChefSteps website; or take the skin off, cooking it, then dehydrate it until it's barely pliable, then coarse grind it and dust the meat with the dried skin crumble. 30 seconds in the deep fryer and it puffs into a beautiful crisp coating.

specialk22tt

@Paul - totally unrelated, but I love your picture.