Birthday Duck

Let me tell you the story of the duck birthday dinner....

One of my favorite foods is duck, which I was introduced to by my father's girlfriend as a Christmas meal.  I tell the story like this:  2 jews and an atheist sit down for Duck A L'orange....  It's almost like the start to a joke or something.  My father's girlfriend is an amazing cook and her forte is definitely french food.  This duck was amazing - the skin crispy, the flesh tender and juicy, and we would each get half a bird to ourselves...  and as much as I loved the food, I could never even half finish my bird (especially since I would save room for the tart tatin my father had made for dessert).  Well, I have been raving about this meal and always love to order duck when it is on a menu, so my fiance requested that I make it!  The first hurdle was finding a duck (not really something I think Price Chopper regularly stocks) - but we have an acquaintance who offered to sell us 2 ducks he had - score!  I got the recipe for the Duck A L'orange from christmas past and thought I was all set.

On the day before my fiance's birthday, I went to the freezer and found one of these said ducks to thaw.  To my dismay, this was a fully skinned duck - none of the beautiful skin and thick layer of fat which was to render out keeping the meat moist and no skin to crisp with the orange glaze.  Hum, this was a twist I wasn't expecting.  On the advice of my mother, I looked for recipes that would require skinless duck or chicken.  A quick sear on foodnetwork.com for "skinless duck breast" struck gold:
Duck with a cherry and champange reduction
While, I don't feel the need to describe the recipe in detail - if you can read this blog, you can read a recipe - I would like to comment on some of the unexpected things I encountered.

1.  I had a whole duck, and to be honest, it wasn't a very meaty duck.  I took the breasts off the bone and also thought there was enough meat on the legs/thighs that I attempted (somewhat successfully) to remove them as well.  I did take some of the fat from the rest of the carcass and melted that down in my pan to sear the meat in.
2.  I thought I had dried cherries, but I was wrong, I had dried cranberries and I think those worked just fine.
3.  I used Goose Watch Winery's Rose sparkling wine - so good.  A good excuse to open a bottle!!!
4.  The legs/thighs were not a success - very tough!  I definitely think we ate a wild duck, this was no farm raised animal.  However, I guess we have to take the source into account, and for $5, I can't be too picky.  Next recipe we shall stick to the breasts.

I don't think I would call this recipe a raging success, I've definitely experimented and had greater success with other things.  I think we may also try to get a farm raised duck and try the christmas recipe with that and I doubt our friend is going to make the effort to pluck and clean a duck while keeping the skin intact.