Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Beer can duck?

So I've got a D'Artagnan duckling in my freezer. That's a whole other story -- the ducklings are supposed to be sold fresh, but I think Wegmans froze a bunch by accident, and they were selling them for 75% off. I picked up two of them... I mean, five bucks each for a five pound duckling? Can't pass that up!

Since it's grilling season, I wanted to do them on the grill. For the first one, I thawed it, broke it down, and grilled the pieces up separately. For the wings, I did this "pterodactyl wings" thing where you stretch them out on a skewer. I put barbecue sauce on some of the pieces, the rest I just did plain salt & pepper. The meat was delicious, but the fat in the skin didn't really render sufficiently.

So I want to try something different for the other duck. My favorite way of cooking chicken on the grill is "chick under a brick", where you place bricks or a cast-iron pan or whatever on top of the chicken so the skin presses down on the grill and gets really nice and crispy. But I am worried if I try that with duck, the fat dripping will just cause massive flare-ups that I won't be able to control...

Another popular way of grilling chicken is beer can chicken. I've never tried it myself, but since it is a slow-roasting method, I'm thinking it might be effective with getting the duck skin to cook up nicely. Think it might work?

Whatever I end up doing with the duck, I'll post about it here...

Update: At least one person has already tried it, with fairly good results... I dunno about the internal temp being 180F though. Duck is supposed to be medium-rare. Anyway, looks like it "can" work, so I'll probably give it a spin..

2 comments:

  1. Hi again, James! I will let you know when I try the chicken. Might not be for a few weeks, my youngest just got 4 wisdom teeth removed yesterday so in family unity we are eating softer foods for a while (she looks like a chipmonk with its pockets full of food currently, poor kid) and I go out of town next week for several days. However, when I get back we will try the chicken.

    Beer can duck--haven't tried that. We love beer can chicken here as the chicken meat is so moist and juicy. I got my husband one of those neat things that hold the can and the chicken upright so they don't fall over on the grill all the time. Let us know how the duck goes.

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  2. Here's wishing a rapid recovery to your daughter! I had all four of my wisdom teeth out when I was about 13-ish.. I think I was lucky, though, I never experienced any major pain and for the most part I recovered pretty quickly. Hopefully she will have an easy time too! Best of luck!

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