|
I’ve
heard more than one person say they refuse to eat a duck or a
goose. They’ve
heard or experienced that waterfowl are very greasy when cooked.
This
misconception has kept a lot of people from enjoying some of the
best-tasting game around. I’d
even rank it better than venison – and I love
venison.
The
main problem is the way in which the bird is prepared.
Following are three simple steps that, when followed,
will not only provide you with a completely grease-free meal,
but also one whose taste will be a pleasant surprise.
If
you’ve had a bad experience with a meal of duck or goose, I
urge you to try just one more time using the advice I’m
presenting here.
STEP 1:
Get the Pluck Outta Here.
They’re
called ‘waterfowl’ for a reason.
In order to keep their feathers dry (and so themselves
warm), ducks and geese come equipped with hundreds and hundreds
of oil glands in their skin.
When
you pluck the duck or goose, you’re leaving all those oil
glands behind, and so when the bird is cooked, this oil
permeates itself throughout the meat.
And THIS is why you have a greasy meal.
So
how do you avoid the grease??
Very simple: Always
SKIN waterfowl. Never,
EVER pluck.
How
to skin a duck or goose:
- Flip the bird on its back.
- Between each leg and the
body is a piece of loose skin.
Pull this skin out with one hand and poke your knife
through the skin with the other.
- Take both of the bird’s
feet in one hand and hook a finger or two of the other hand
in the hole made by the knife.
- Pull toward the head.
- If you just want to fillet
out the breasts, all you’ll have to do is pull the skin up
to the neck and down to the wing/armpit area.
- Cut along the breastplate
and remove the meat.
STEP 2:
Sirloin of the Skies.
The
next thing to think about is just what kind of meat you have
here. Consider this:
Ducks and geese eat mainly grasses and grains (there are
fish-eating ducks, of course, but they’re not part of this
conversation).
What
American favorite of the table can you think of that also eats
mainly grasses and grains??
That’s
right -- BEEF.
You’ll
also want to bear in mind that waterfowl have almost no white
meat. A common
mistake when preparing waterfowl is the notion that, since
they’re birds, they must be prepared in the same way as a
chicken or turkey, and in order to do this, you must have a bird
with the skin left on (see Step 1).
So
here we have a bird that eats pretty much the same things as
cows and has almost all red meat like cows.
I know you don’t believe it, but this is leading
exactly where you think it is.
When
you prepare ducks or geese,
treat them like beef. It
doesn’t matter if you’re making them into small steaks,
putting them in a stew, grinding them into burgers, making
jerky, smoking, or whatever you may decide to do.
If you treat ducks and geese like beef, you may not even
notice the difference. I
guarantee if you were to make a couple of waterfowl steaks for
an unsuspecting guest, they’d swear they were having beef.
STEP 3:
Hold the Onions.
I’ll
cut right to the chase on this one.
Unless
you like liver, do NOT cook waterfowl to well-done.
A duck or goose cooked to the point where there’s no
red/pink in the middle with taste EXACTLY like live – and I
mean EXACTLY like liver. I
found this out the hard way one time when I was making myself a
goose steak and wandered away from the grill for too long.
The
less red/pink in the middle, the more like liver the meat will
taste. I personally
have to leave my waterfowl very red/pink in the middle (I
can’t stand liver).
But
conversely, if you’re into liver and onions, this may be right
up your alley.
Check
out the tasty recipes presented at right and below. These
have been perfected over almost 30 years of trial and the
occasional error (how do you think I found out about the
'tastes-like-liver'?).
.
|
