Duck Feast (Thanksgiving)

Prep Directions (start 1-2 days before)

Prep the duck (Day 1):

1. Follow this tutorial to break down duck

2. If you want to dry-age then do that first, else remove breasts

3. SAVE ALL THE BONES AND ALL THE EXTRA SKINS

4. DON'T REMOVE SKIN FROM BREASTS AND LEGS, JUST TRIM OFF THE DANGLING BITS

5. Blitz your alliums in the food processor

6. Salt the duck legs evenly

7. Cover duck legs in alliums and let cure overnight (this is for the confit)

Make duck fat (Day 1):

1. Follow this tutorial to make the duck fat from the skin from the previous step

2. Enjoy the skins however you want - serve up or eat it yourself as a chef's treat

Make duck stock (Day 1):

1. Preheat oven at 400F

2. Roast duck carcasses, 20 mins or until nice and brown

3. Put duck carcass and all the stock-making stuff into a pot with water, bring to boil

4. Reduce heat to simmer, let simmer for an hour or something, keep tasting until you're happy with the flavour

Confit the duck legs (Day 2):

1. Use your favourite recipe to confit the duck legs using the duck fat you have. I use this recipe.

   1. This is where having some extra duck fat would come in handy

2. Store duck legs until you're ready to cook

Cranberry sauce and Stuffing (Day 2):

1. Make stuffing using your favourite recipe

2. Make cranberry sauce using your favourite recipe, but add some orange juice and orange zest - duck goes amazing with orange

3. Put stuffing and sauce in the fridge until day of cooking

Potato (Day 2)

1. Boil potatoes in unsalted water

2. Let cool then put in fridge until day of cooking

Stuffing (Day 2)

1. Use whatever recipe you want to make the stuffing, but switch their stock with the duck stock that you made.

2. Stick in the fridge until day of cooking

Day-Of Cooking Directions

Stuffing

1. Preheat oven to 300F

2. Put stuffing in for 10 mins to reheat

3. Turn broil on high

4. Watch closely until stuffing is nicely broiled on top

Cranberry sauce

1. Heat cranberry sauce up in the saucepan OR don't heat it up if you like cold sauce

Duck

1. Take the duck breasts, use the tip of your knife to  score the skin with a checkerboard pattern

2. Generously salt skin side, lightly salt meat side

3. Put duck breasts into a ROOM TEMP AND DRY frying pan, skin side down

4. Turn fire on to low-medium low, if fat starts spitting, turn down the heat a little

5. Let the breasts cook until skin is golden brown and internal temp is 125F (around 15 mins)

6. If skin not brown when internal temp is at 125F, turn up heat to medium and sear the skin a bit more

7. Flip over to meat side and sear until 130F (about 1-2mins)

8. Remove breasts from pan, tent with foil and let rest

Potatoes

1. Put pre-boiled potatoes on the cutting board, and squish them down to about 1" thick with the flat side of a knife

2. Salt and pepper both sides

3. Pan fry potatoes in duck fat, you can use the same pan you used for the duck breasts

4. Fry until golden brown

5. Remove from pans

Pan sauce (optional)

1. If you have lots of fond on the pan, you can make a nice pan sauce

2. Use a nice white wine and some orange juice

Duck legs

1. Take out a non-stick pan - the skin on the confit legs are fragile so you don't want them to tear while cooking

2. Put legs into pan, skin down, start heat on med-low

3. Cook until skin is golden brown

4. Flip, cook the other side until golden brown

5. Remove from heat

Plate up everything and enjoy the results of your hard labor!