Got Duck Breasts? A Recipe with a Savory, Saucy Kick

Cooking Wild Magazine

My last post about Alice Knows Best and her delicious roasted duck (which I turned into shoe leather, in case you missed it) inspired a healthy response.

In fact, they’re still trickling in.

Several of you sent in terrific, drool-inspiring waterfowl recipes, most of which I’ll profile in this space over the next several months. However, most responses were requests for new, creative ways to prepare duck breasts, a common theme for many waterfowl hunters.

Although I’m a staunch advocate of preparing whole birds (or at least preparing their individual parts: breasts, legs, thighs, not to mention livers and hearts), recipes featuring duck breasts are enormously popular. What waterfowler, after all, doesn’t have the stray vacuum-sealed package of duck breasts in his or her freezer?

As I searched for some new recipes, I happened upon the Web site for Cooking Wild magazine (www.cookingwildmagazine.com), the publisher of which is April Donald of Livermore, California.

I hit the “recipe” tab and found this Deep South-inspired beauty: chicken fried duck breast with Mmm spicy ketchup, courtesy of John Gurnee, a sous chef at Tyler Florence’s Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco.

Founded in January 2010, Cooking Wild magazine is gaining traction with hardcore foodies, especially hunters and anglers who believe eating what they kill isn’t something you merely do, but a calling.

April isn’t a hunter herself, although, she says, she’s been around blood sport her entire life. Her husband hunts, as do other members of her family. Starting a magazine devoted to preparation of wild foods seemed as natural as nature itself.

I prepared the recipe last weekend, with duck breasts supplied by a good friend. I followed its instructions to the letter, with two exceptions: I kicked up the spicy ketchup with some red pepper flakes and turned the duck breasts into duck fingers.

The verdict: drooling-inspiring terrific. Give it a whirl.

Roasted Duck: Alice Knows Best

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It's all a matter of degree.

I remember learning that lesson the hard way. I was "preparing" my first mallard, a jumbo-sized, grain-fattened drake that I shot from a coffin blind in a South Dakota cornfield.

A good friend and I went on an epic cross-country scouting mission the night before, and needless to say we found a very respectable late-season feed of impervious-to-winter mallards.

About three inches of snow had already blanketed the ground. The temperature had dipped into the teens for about a week. And most water sources, except for the largest of the large, were frozen. Still, with any luck, we figured one good hunt—the year's swan song, we thought—was at hand.

We weren't disappointed (that, incidentally, would come several hours later).

The short story: We each killed four burly greenheads and called it a year. That afternoon I dressed the birds and plucked one specifically for the roasting pan.

I had my grandmother on my mind; Alice (yes, I called my grandmother by her first name!) had perfected roasted duck. The skin was always crispy and the meat was fall-off-the-bone tender and succulent. The mere thought of Alice's oven-roasted duck sent my salivary glands into involuntarily release, like water spilling from a dam.

I was pumped to get in the kitchen and begin my gastronomic journey.

I filled the birds' cavity with quartered apples and onions, massaged the skin with a prepared dry rub, placed the mallard in the roasting pan, and added some braising liquid for good measure.

The oven was already preheated. The temperature: 475 degrees. I followed Alice's directions to the letter. Or so I thought.

One major problem: I over-shot the oven temperature by 200 degrees. Instead of cooking the bird low and slow I roasted it hot and fast. Who knew oven temperature mattered so much?