We're Fancy!

Leigh and I have had duck on two occasions. Once in Korea I cooked a duck. It was almost inedible. We also had orange duck and Keegan and Laurel's wedding. Hands down, one of the best bites of food I have ever eaten. Based on our split experiences we were a little on the fence about raising ducks for food.

The friend we buy our chickens from gave us a free Muscovy duck as a joke when we got our last batch of chickens. Muscovy's are odd ducks (pun a little bit intended) in that they are not big on the water. They can and will swim, but in no way need water to live. They are from South America so handle heat well. The do not fly well, only about as well as a chicken does. They are easily recognizable because they are huge for ducks and get warty bumps all over their faces. I don't seem to have a picture of our duck but I got one off the Internet. Ours looked just like this.

We were looking forward to duck eggs because supposedly they are wonderful to bake with. We waited and waited...then realized our duck was a boy. It's rough to be a male livestock on our farm. It usually substantially shortens your life expectancy. As soon as Duck started beating up the chickens we knew his time had come. I had never cooked a duck that was edible, so I was nervous. I didn't want to ruin something and have to waste it. I found a recipe for honey duck on Allrecipes.com. I think it came out looking pretty good.

It was not nearly as delicious as the duck at the wedding, but it was for sure edible. A few things we learned though: Braising or slow cooking is a must. The legs were so tough we couldn't eat them. Slaughtering earlier is also a must. The flavor and texture was a lot like beef. Our kids, who neat next to no beef, were not huge fans, but I think it will grow on them.

It will be a few months before we add ducks back to the farm. We would like them to have separate housing from the chickens and be more educated on when to slaughter and how to prepare them. I am happy though that we were able to raise something and eat it. We know that the meat we were eating was free of hormones, antibiotics and additives, and it was humanely raised and slaughtered. That means a lot to us. And you better beilieve the carcass is poised for the stock pot, and the remnants, minus the large bones are destined for the pigs. Waste nothing!