Plum Smoked Duck with Plum Wine Reduction

Duck...duck...duck...NOT goose! Duck. Smoked duck to be specific. Fine tuning it even more, duck marinated in Japanese plum wine (gekkheikan), garlic, Asian 5-spice, star anise, Szechuan peppercorns and tamari, then smoked over a combo of apple and cherry woods and served with a fresh plum and plum wine reduction. Drooling yet?

This was our very first venture into duck smoking so we kind of went into it blindly. (Just so you know, with great effort I'm resisting a duck blind joke. You're welcome.) I knew I didn't want to go the traditional orange route...so overdone, don't you think? But the classic combo of fruit and duck is a time-honored tradition for a reason. They were meant for one another!

The plan was to use sake as the marinade base, but when I found plum wine on the state store shelf, the rest of the flavors fell right in line. Plums are plentiful in the farm markets right now so Italian prune plums went on the list. The rest of the ingredients found their way from the pantry and spice rack into the solution and became one beautifully fragrant bath for our plump duck.

After hours of smoking the duck to a deep, rich brown lacquer, all that was needed was a simple sauce to highlight the the smoky, sweet flavor. You should have smelled the luscious, fruity, spicy aroma as it rose from the opened smoker! Heaven. 

Isn't he pretty?!

A simple reduction of the same plum wine mixed with crushed plums, organic orange blossom honey (ha! I did get the classic orange in there after all!), sharp Colman's mustard, ginger and garlic produced a gorgeous dark red sauce that accented the sweet, slightly game-y duck perfectly. You might even say dinner was plum delicious!    

Plum Smoked Duck With Plum Wine Reduction

• 1 5-pound (approximately) duck, thawed if necessary

• 3 BIG garlic cloves...or 6 smaller ones, smashed
• 1 star anise, crushed
• 3 slices fresh ginger root, about quarter sized
• 1 tablespoon Scechuan peppercorns, crushed
• 2 teaspoons five-spice powder
• 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce, Gluten-free to make this GF
• 1 1/2 cups wine, Japanese Plum Wine - also known as Gekkeikan

• 1 cup wine, Japanese Plum Wine - yep, same as above
• 4 very ripe Italian prune plums, seeded and quartered
• 1 teaspoon honey, orange blossom...or your own favorite
• 1 teaspoon Colman's dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
• a hefty pinch of powdered ginger

The night before you want to serve this, combine garlic, star anise, fresh ginger, Szechuan peppercorns, 5-spice, tamari and plum wine in a gallon size zip top plastic bag. Squeeze out all the air, seal tightly and put it into a bowl that holds it snugly. (If it leaks, it won't be all over your fridge if it's in a bowl!)
 
The next day, take the duck out of the marinade and discard the marinade. Dry the duck thoroughly with paper towels. Pour the soda out of a soda can, add about 1/2 cup of plum wine, a hefty shake of granulated garlic, 1/2 t. - 1 t. cayenne, 1/2 t. mustard powder and 1 t. ginger. Yes, this will cook beer can chicken style! Fit the duck over the spice and wine filled can and carefully set aside.
 
Soak a combination of half cherry/half applewood chips for at least an hour. Prepare the smoker according to whatever smoker you use. When the coals are hot, scatter the chips.
 
Put the duck on the smoker and smoke for at least 6 hours - more or less according to your smoker and/or your preference. You know I'm loose about smoking instructions...every smoker is different! Remove the duck and let sit while you make the reduction.
 
REDUCTION (reDUCKtion?): In a saucepan combine 1 c. plum wine, the quartered plums, honey and spices. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium. Let simmer until the liquid reduces by half. Strain the reduction through a small strainer, pressing the solids to extract all the liquid.
 
Slice the duck and serve with the beautiful sauce. This would also be wonderful with a chicken...and there's a LOT more meat on a chicken! (A turkey breast would work well, too!)

Duck Fat Fries at Home

 

Duck fat. Never, ever would I have imagined a couple of years ago that the fat of a duck would some day be such a delicacy.  Duck fat was something undesirable when you ordered the fowl in a restaurant. Nobody likes fatty duck!  When preparing duck at home, you try to cook the fat out of the duck. You prick the hell out of the skin to allow all the fat to escape.  It certainly never occurred to me that very same unwanted stuff in the bottom of the roasting pan would become liquid gold!  

Here we are a few years older, not necessarily wiser, and I'm finding duck fat fries all over the menus of the best of restaurants.  They are cooking with the dregs in the bottom of pans across the world and making delicious, crisp, flavorful potatoes that I could cry over they're so good! 

Did you see the episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network where Michael Symon strolls out of Lola (his premier restaurant in Cleveland on 4th Street) walks a few doors down to The Greenhouse Tavern, sidles up to the bar and simultaneously waxes poetic about the glories of their Duck Fries and giddily devours them?  Once I saw that episode those fries became a goal, a quest, a raison d'être.  It's a good thing Kimber lives in Cleveland!  We sidled up to that very same bar at The Greenhouse Tavern ourselves and put in our order.

You know how the anticipation of something can be a let down when you actually achieve it?  NOT IN THIS CASE!  Kimber and I shared them.  Savored them. Waxed poetic ourselves over them.  We may even have been giddy over them ourselves!  Sigh.  And then we (okay, I) craved them.  Oh sure, Kimber lives in Cleveland and can hit up 4th Street and Lola and The Greenhouse Tavern at will.  But not this poor soul, I still had to dream about their goodness.

So I decided to make them at home.  And I BOUGHT duck fat!  Oh yes I did.  I paid good, hard-earned money for the very same stuff I'd been turning my nose up at and throwing away for years. And on Superbowl Sunday I made them.  In fact, I made TWO kinds of potatoes in the precious previously maligned magic substance.  Sweet potatoes and white potatoes floated and bubbled and sizzled in the golden fat until they, too, were golden.  You know when you make French fries from scratch and your whole house smells like grease for days?  Not with duck fat.  The house smells heavenly....like roasting duck.  The air is perfumed with it!  And it was easy to do.  Simple, actually. 

When I was a kid, my mom always made fries from scratch.  There weren't frozen fries back then.  I remember her cutting the potatoes - Russets - into long sticks and soaking them in ice water for a while.  Then she'd pour off the water, lay out a terrycloth towel, lay the drained potatoes across the towel, roll it up and remove every bit of moisture before cooking them in hot oil.  So I went back in time and made my new-fangled fries the same way my mom had made hers so many years ago.  Roots.  I've got 'em.  Once they came out of the oil, I sprinkled them with a little Kosher salt and just a kiss of vinegar.  And they were heaven. 

Duck Fries

• 2 7-ounce tubs D'Artagnan duck fat (Giant Eagle Market District carries it - ask) (believe it or not, you can order it on Amazon, too!)
• 2 pounds large Russet potatoes - peeled and cut into French fry sized sticks - make them pretty!
• 1 pound sweet potatoes - peeled and cut into the same size pieces as the Russets
• Kosher or sea salt
• vinegar of your choice - I used cider vinegar, but malt vinegar would be wonderful....just not for we gluten-free folks

  

Using a large, deep heavy pot, heat the duck fat to 375 degrees.  CAREFULLY lower the fries into the oil and fry until crisp and golden brown.  You'll need to do this in several batches...do not crowd!  

As each batch is done, remove to a paper towel-lined baking sheet and keep warm in the oven (200 degrees) until all the fries are ready.  Sprinkle with the salt, splash a little vinegar over and get ready to enjoy some of the best, most flavorful fries you've ever had!

Do NOT throw out the fat!  Let it cool, pour it back into the original containers and store it in the refrigerator until the next time.  And there will be a next time, trust me.

NOTE:  I use a deep pot because the cost of the duck fat is prohibitive to using in a fryer.  The duck fat is $5.99 a small container at Giant Eagle.  The same as it is online, but you don't have to pay for shipping and you don't have to wait for it!  Of course, if you don't live where you can get it in the store, it would be worth having it shipped, in my opinion.

One interesting thing...to me anyway...when you open the container, the fat is white.  When it melts, it turns gold.  And when it solidifies again?  White again.  And there was NO loss of fat in the cooking process!  That's a sign of a good cooking temp AND a good fat.  

One more thing.  Next time I make duck, I am SAVING the fat!  No more dissing the duck fat for me.  Duck fat respect.  Amen.

Okay....another thing.  The picture above?  Obviously the fries are in the back, the Old Bay Wings are in the front.