Duck is delicious. Sadly, it’s not cheap. But there are ways to make it less expensive.
Buy a whole duck. A whole Gressingham duck currently sells for about £9.
Meanwhile, two duck breasts cost £8, and two duck legs cost £4.50 or thereabouts.
Here’s a whole duck. I’ve pulled the plastic bag of giblets out, and put them in the stock pot, along with the wing tips. There will be more in the pan soon….
Now, with a very sharp knife, and considerable caution, I have cut one breast off the duck. Not very tidy knife-work, but I’m out of practice…
Eventually, one ends up with two duck breasts and two duck legs, for the freezer. When I have collected four legs, I will make confit duck legs.
The duck breasts seem to be smaller than the ones they sell separately. My guess is that they use their biggest ducks for the portions, and sell the smaller ones whole.
The rest of the carcase just gets broken up, submerged in water, and boiled for a while, resulting in a delicious stock. What can I use that for, you ask?
Well, I used it for ramen. There wasn’t quite enough duck meat on the carcase for this, so I quickly cooked a couple of chicken thighs, you can see it at the top of the bowl. This was a lovely dish for a cold, wet evening…
