- September 24, 2018
- Cooking
- Marina Olenyuk
A duck carcass looks rich and appetizing on any holiday table. Many people cannot imagine their feast without enjoying duck meat. Gourmets have many different ways to prepare it. The duck is boiled, fried, baked and even smoked. We will consider the last of the listed cooking options right now. Perhaps not many people know how to smoke duck at home. Today we are correcting this oversight.
For those who didn’t know (didn’t think about this possible method of cooking poultry), and for those who knew but forgot, here are several ways to smoke duck meat. Right now from this article you will know how to smoke a duck (and any other bird) using various methods of processing it. Your guests will be amazed by the delicious dish and its appearance. You just need to choose the most successful and preferable recipes for your taste and not be afraid of culinary experiments.
Duck selection
To get a delicious smoked duck, you need to take the choice of the main raw materials seriously. Frozen poultry is a highly undesirable option. However, not everyone is lucky with purchasing a chilled carcass. If you happen to get frozen raw materials, dry the carcass thoroughly after it has thawed. Excess moisture spoils the skin of the smoked product. Before smoking a duck, be sure to inspect the carcass. Meat of questionable freshness should never enter your home. If you smell aromas that are atypical for poultry: mold, mustiness, bitterness, etc. - do not buy such a product!
A little history
If we recall the primitive communal system, we can note that the main provider of food for the entire tribe was always a man. And the woman was the keeper of the home. The man went hunting, brought back various prey, and the woman, as best she could, surprised him with her culinary masterpieces. At that time, people could boast of really good and healthy food, devoid of various genetically modified additives. Times have changed, but the distribution of roles in the family has remained the same. Consequently, the woman still remains a faithful keeper of the hearth and continues to prepare various delicacies for her husband and her children.
It’s impossible not to love smoked duck
Meat has long been the favorite food of men. It could have been a bird. Recipes for cooking meat dishes can be found anywhere. Housewives themselves have already tried a thousand recipes for preparing meat dishes to please men. One of the very beautiful, exquisite, but at the same time affordable meat masterpieces is smoked duck.
Poultry pre-treatment
Those cooks who have keen hunters in their families are luckier. Here there will be no problems with catching the main culprit in today’s article - the duck. The duck will be fresh, without any doubt. But these lucky ones will also have a little more work to do in preparing the carcass(s).
Before smoking a duck, it is necessary to carry out preparatory steps with the carcass. Yes, this is not the most pleasant part of the work, but the expected result will cover all your efforts. Below are the manipulations that need to be performed with any bird (duck) carcass, regardless of the smoking method intended for it.
What kind of wood chips is best to use?
For smoking you need to use only deciduous trees. Coniferous trees give smoked meat a bitter taste and a resinous smell. Chips, sawdust or shavings must be the same size.
It is impossible to mix sawdust and wood chips and shavings, because they have different smoke formation temperatures. Alder and bird cherry wood chips are suitable for smoking duck. For additional flavoring, you can add juniper berries, bay, mint, heather, sage, oregano, and onion peels to the main wood chips.
Poultry cutting
Next, the carcass should be gutted. Remove excess fat (when smoking it will melt and interfere with the quality of the duck). The neck and small bones are also removed. The outer part of the wings is also cut off. Cut off the duck's tail as well. Rinse the bird carcass several more times until the water remains completely clear, only in this case you will get a tasty and beautiful smoked duck.
The duck is smoked whole or divided into four parts.
Wet Ambassador
A simple method that does not require unusual spices. For one kilogram of duck weight you need to take:
- one liter of water;
- one hundred grams of salt;
- ten grams of sugar;
- lemon juice - half a glass;
- various favorite spices: cloves, allspice, bay leaves.
Bring water to a boil in a saucepan. Add salt, sugar and all spices. Boil the brine for two minutes and pour in the lemon juice. The duck is immersed in the completely cooled marinade. 7-8 hours - and the duck is marinated. Care must be taken to ensure that the entire bird carcass is in the brine at this time.
Nuances of preparation
For the simplest recipe you need to have:
- pepper;
- water;
- garlic;
- cloves;
- salt;
- vinegar.
It should be noted that smoked domestic duck in such a marinade will appeal even to those people who do not like overly salty dishes. You can also remove or add some ingredients to the recipe if needed. After all, many people are allergic to these products. If you take a basic set of ingredients as a basis, you can create the perfect marinade recipe yourself.
Dry salting
For this marinade, rub the duck on all sides with plenty of salt and ground pepper. First you need to mix these ingredients. Don’t be afraid to overdo it with salt—it’s very difficult to oversalt duck this way. Once you have processed the entire bird, place it in an enamel bowl (bucket or pan). When placing duck meat in a bowl, it should also be generously sprinkled with salt. The dishes with the duck should be kept in a cold place for 5-6 days. Once a day, the meat must be “tossed”—turned over—for better salting.
Before smoking, the marinated duck (both the first and second methods) is hung for 5-10 hours to dry.
In soy sauce
Duck marinated in soy sauce has a slightly salty aftertaste and piquancy.
The recipe for preparing the dish itself will take no more than 2 hours.
What ingredients are needed for the marinade?
For the soy sauce marinade you will need the following ingredients:
- medium-sized duck – 1 pc.;
- mustard – 1 tbsp. l.;
- Dijon mustard – 1 tbsp. l.;
- garlic – 6 cloves;
- soy sauce – 2 tbsp. l.;
- smoked paprika – 1 tsp;
- salt.
Step-by-step process for preparing the marinade
Step-by-step recipe for making marinade with soy sauce:
- First you need to prepare the bird: wash it, pluck it if you need to, and remove all the entrails.
- Then rub the duck inside and out well with salt.
- Next, you need to press the garlic using a press and mix it well with spices, mustard and soy sauce.
- Afterwards, rub the resulting mixture onto the poultry meat inside and out.
- Then the duck carcass should be placed in a baking sleeve and left to marinate for 5-6 hours.
Rules for smoking duck, duration and features
As soon as the meat is marinated, it must be placed in the oven, preheated to 180 °C. It is recommended to place the bird on a baking sheet breast side down. The carcass should be cooked in the smoking mode for 1.5-2 hours. After this time, you need to cut the sleeve and leave the meat to cook for another 20 minutes.
Hot smoking
The hot smoked duck recipe is more popular. Poultry prepared in this way has tender and juicy meat and a fried crust. Fans of Asian cuisine know a lot about the taste of hot-cooked duck. This meat is considered a delicacy.
You will love the recipe for hot smoked duck in a smokehouse. Place shavings and special chips from various wood species on the bottom of the smokehouse. Cover the chips with a special tray. The tray will collect the fat that drains from the duck carcass during the entire cooking process. Rods (or grates) are installed above the pallet. Place the meat on the racks. Leave gaps of at least one centimeter between pieces of meat if you want your smoked duck to be not only tasty, but also beautiful.
Heat the smokehouse chamber to a temperature of 80 degrees. The duck is kept in such conditions for at least an hour. Then the temperature is lowered to 40 degrees and smoking continues for 3.5-4 hours, the exact time will depend on the initial weight of the bird.
During the smoking process, pieces of meat (or a whole duck carcass) must be turned over from time to time for more uniform processing.
How to smoke over an open fire
Instructions for cooking over an open fire suggest the following sequence:
- Place the marinated duck in the smokehouse according to the recipe suggested above in the article.
- Spread an even layer of fruit tree sawdust on the bottom.
- Place a thick tray on top of the sawdust, and instead of legs, roll into round balls of foil.
- A grill is placed on the tray, and the prepared carcass is placed on top of it.
- Light the fire in the burner.
- Allow time in the smoking device for 1 hour.
Expert opinion
Nikolay Osipov
Smoker with 10 years of experience. Knows how to prepare the product and smoke it correctly. You can ask him a question by clicking on the button on the right
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Important: check the carcass after a while to make sure it doesn’t burn. You can also not only cook the duck whole, but also divide it into portions, so it will take less time to cook it this way.
Sometimes the smoking procedure takes about 40-50 minutes.
With liquid smoke
At home, hot smoked duck can be obtained using liquid smoke. Or rather, it will not be a completely smoked product, but still very tasty. Many housewives prefer this method of “smoking” duck meat. There is no fuss with sawdust and smoke, everything is clean and ultimately delicious.
The prepared duck (salting recipes are given above in the body of the article) is rubbed with a large amount of liquid smoke. This substance is probably familiar to everyone, but in case you haven’t paid attention to it before, let’s say that liquid smoke is a liquid that has a distinct smoky aroma. A bottle of this substance is inexpensive. Can be found in grocery departments of stores.
So, after the bird carcass has undergone preliminary preparation (marination) and rubbing with liquid smoke, the duck needs to be baked in the oven in any way convenient for you. The finished baked bird will have the taste and aroma of a smoked product.
Feeding features
Duck prepared according to the cold or hot smoked recipe is served both cold and heated.
For smoked duck, you can prepare a side dish of boiled or baked potatoes or steamed rice. Served with spicy or sweet tomato sauce.
Smoked duck with rice
To store smoked meats, you need to put them in a cold place and keep them at a temperature of 2-4 °C.
The duck on the festive table looks very appetizing and elegant. The aroma of smoking and unique taste will not leave anyone indifferent.
Cold smoked duck recipe
First you need to carry out all the preliminary manipulations: cutting, marinating, drying in the shade (4-5 hours). Now you can start cold smoking poultry meat.
The carcasses are placed on a grate or hung on rods in the smokehouse. Fill the smoke generator with wood chips, set it on fire and direct the smoke into the meat processing chamber. The entire smoking process lasts at a temperature of 25 to 35 degrees. Depending on the weight of the bird and how full the chamber is, smoking lasts from twenty-four hours to three days. After a day, pierce the carcass in the thickest places to check the degree of readiness of the product. If ichor is released at the puncture site, the meat is not yet ready to eat.
If you can’t wait to taste smoked duck as soon as possible, it is permissible to increase the temperature to 40 degrees. In this case, the duck will be ready in 8-10 hours. But experts say that a colder method and a long time of cold smoking make duck meat incredibly aromatic and tasty, so there is a reason to wait three days and not rush things by raising the temperature. During smoking, duck carcasses need to be sprayed (or doused) with the prepared brine in which they were simmered before entering the smokehouse.
Carcasses of finished smoked ducks after the process are hung in the shade, in a place with good air movement, for two hours. Here the meat will “reach” perfection: the pungent smell of smoke will disappear, and the bird will acquire that unique aroma and, most importantly, taste.
Prepared cold-smoked duck carcasses should be stored in the cold and always wrapped in wax paper. This method helps preserve the smoky flavor for a longer period of time. Regular baking foil works well for this purpose. Wrap each piece tightly so that there are no gaps. But the wisest decision would be to eat smoked duck, otherwise why have we worked tirelessly for so long? Invite your guests and treat them to a real delicacy.
