Roasted Dry Aged Duck

jason.r.whitworth

Just picked up a dry aged duck that caught my eye at the butcher shop. Wanting to cook it whole.

Debating using Eleven Madison Park Cookbook recipe of basically

375º Oven

Cook for 8 minutes, rotate and cook for 8 minutes.

Or applying the Chefsteps Small Game Bird Technique of searing skin in a nonstick and then finishing in a very low 175 °F degree oven.

Any thoughts or experience?

Find more posts tagged with

Recipes Q's

Comments

naithaddi

I had the food at 11 Madison Park, if it can come out the way it comes out there, I would definitely try the Madison technique. I had the chicken at NoMad and it was amazing. I tried the recipe at home and I ended up with an equally delicious bird. (Equally is maybe a big word, but it was awesome!)

Jack_Mayer_85396

D'Artagnan has a good video on cooking pheasant that might help ... Let us know how it goes, I'm interested in this as well! Best wishes ...

jason.r.whitworth

So I went with the Eleven Madison park recipe to cook the bird.

Made a rub of coriander, white pepper, lavender and salt. I brushed the skin with just a little bit of warmed honey to make the rub stick as the skin was completely dried out.

375º Oven

Cook for 8 minutes, rotate and cook for 8 minutes. Let rest for 15 minutes.

Made some chamber sealer Honeycrisp compressed apples "quick pickled" with white balsamic vinegar.

Made a stew of Onions, Garlic, Shallots and Prunes.

Cooked some fuji apples with some butter and a touch of honey.

The duck after coming out of the oven

Removed the breast. They looked a little too rare in color, but texture and flavor was a perfect med rare.

Possible they were actually rare, but the bird was so dried out it felt more med rare. In any case it was perfect.

Final Plated Dish

This was the best Duck I have ever prepared, and probably the best duck i have ever eaten. (I think most of the credit goes to the dry aging of the bird)

The Dry age on this duck made so much difference. I love a dry aged steak but dry aging maybe improves a steak by 2x or 3x. This dry aged duck was like 10 times better than just a random duck in the case at whole foods or something. I will ask the butcher exactly how long this one was aged for but it seemed pretty old. No moisture anywhere, and the whole duck was stiff as a board, it's back end floated above the plate, as you can kind of see in the photos.

So I highly recommend trying a dry aged duck and highly recommend the cooking method described above. (note this was mainly about getting perfect med rare breasts with crispy skin, I put the legs back in the oven after removing the breasts to roast on a low temp. In hindsight it might be best just to split the bird into the "crown" with the breasts and wings, and confit the legs or something.)

My fiancee really loved this and we can't wait to try it again. In my dream kitchen of the future I would love to have a meat aging fridge.

(Sorry for the crap photos, hard to cook, plate etc and still take nice images when you are working alone.)

wolfiegirl

I'm VERY curious (and haven't done any research as of yet) to the process of dry aging a duck. Did you happen to quiz your butcher as to how they achieved it? That is time, temp, humidity....that kind of thing.

When I first saw your photo and post I was very surprised as I'd never even heard of...much less seen....dry aged duck before. You did a very nice job in preparing it! Color me impressed! And no need to apologize for the photos. It's a daunting task to cook and snap pics along the way. The most challenging one I ever did was whisking butter while making hollandaise. Yikes!

Cheers!!

#duck

jason.r.whitworth

I did not quiz him much when I was there but will try and find out more next time I am there.

This website recommends "Keep the temperature between 35 and 39 degrees. John recommends aging large ducks for 5 to 7 days. Mine aged for the full week. "

Link