How to bake a wild duck. Cooking wild duck at home

At the beginning of the hunting season or during its height, almost every hunter has a wild duck in the oven, since such a dish is widespread among game gourmets.

It can be prepared without much difficulty, but you should know a few important points, without which the duck can taste unpleasant. In most cases, this is due to the fact that the carcass has a specific marsh and fishy smell.

This aroma is not to everyone's liking, therefore, a mandatory event is the initial processing of the duck, which consists in the correct gutting and further use of the necessary ingredients during cooking.

Not all of these types are ideal for baking in the oven. For example, mallard duck is perfectly baked, so it is recommended to use it for cooking according to this recipe.

As for teals or dives, they can also be baked, but they are more fried and stewed over low heat. In addition, diving ducks smell of fish very strongly, so they are thoroughly marinated before being sent to the oven.

How is wild duck cooked in the oven?

Before the baking process itself, the duck carcass must undergo special processing on all points, so that later it does not create additional difficulties for the cook.

If you have a carcass with feathers in your hands, then you should definitely get rid of them, that is, take and pluck. There are two ways to do this.

The plucking should start on the chest, back and neck, and then move on to the wings. Further, it is recommended to roll the whole carcass in flour and process it with a gas burner so that no feathers remain.

At the end, rinse everything well with water to remove soot residues. This option is more suitable when you are somewhere in the country or in field conditions. If there is a cozy, homely atmosphere around, then you should use another method.

To do this, the duck is immersed in a container of hot water for several minutes, and then they begin to pluck according to the same scheme as described above. Then you can carry out the treatment with a torch. Some hunters do very differently. They simply skin the bird along with the feathers.

Sometimes you can hear that the game is cooked directly in the fire without removing the feathers. It is placed in clay, and after a while it is taken out already cooked over the fire. Feathers after such a process disappear by themselves.

As a rule, wild duck has shot holes in several places. The fraction does not always fly through the whole carcass, so you need to pay close attention to the pellets that remain in it. They should be taken out and thrown away so that no one will damage their teeth while eating.

Now comes the stage of gutting the insides of the bird, which must be carefully removed from the carcass along with the esophagus and intestines. The head, legs and wing tips must be cut off. Then everything is well washed under running water.

To make the bird even tastier, it is better to put it in the refrigerator for three or four days, and then start baking it in the oven. Some argue that during this time the unpleasant fishy smell of the duck disappears.

At this stage, the preparation of the carcass is completed for further cooking according to individual recipes, which we will consider below.

Duck with apples and lemon

This classic recipe is used by many people because it minimizes the specific smell of duck thanks to apples and lemon.

Required Ingredients:

wild duck carcass - 1 pc .;
apples with sweet and sour taste in the amount of 3 pcs .;
olive oil - 2 tsp;
lemon - 1 pc.;
onions - 1 pc.;
rosemary;
salt is added to taste;
add ground cloves, coriander and black pepper to taste.

Duck cooking process in the oven

If the bird has not yet been plucked and processed according to the rules that were described above, then this should be done now.
Take the onion and cut it into half rings, and the apples should be peeled and cut into slices.
The lemon must be divided into two parts. Peel one half and then cut into thin slices. From the other half, you just need to squeeze out the juice.
Next, mix the lemon juice, olive oil, spices and salt. With all this composition, you need to grate our duck from the inside and outside. In this state, the duck should be marinated for thirty minutes.
Now the carcass must be stuffed inside with onions, lemon, rosemary and apples.
The oven must be heated to 220 degrees so that game can be sent there. Before this, the carcass should be sewn up in the place of the abdomen and fastened with skewers. You need to fasten the wings and legs so that they do not dry out during baking.
Take a baking sheet and grease it. Next, put a few apple slices on it, and then send the duck there. Then pour some water, cover everything with foil and into the oven.
When thirty minutes have passed, you need to get the bird out of the oven, remove the foil and pour over it with the juice that has formed during this time. Then the duck should be in the oven for another 30 minutes. If very little red juice appears from under the foil, then this is a clear sign of the full readiness of the game.

Roast duck with potatoes

If you need to cook quickly and without unnecessary body movements, then this recipe is one hundred percent suitable for such purposes.

You will need the following ingredients:

wild duck - 1 pc.;
onion - 2 heads;
olive oil - 5 tbsp spoons;
potatoes - 4 pcs.;
black and red pepper, you need to take 1 teaspoon;
salt - 1 tsp

Cooking process

Take one teaspoon each of salt, black pepper and red pepper. Mix all this in a separate bowl.
Next, you need to rub the entire carcass with this mixture from all sides. Do not forget to do this with special enthusiasm inside the bird. Now you can leave it in this position for about half an hour, but many immediately proceed to the next stage.
Now take a cast iron skillet and pour olive oil into it from the heart, and then put the carcass. The oven should be heated at this point to 220 degrees. For the first 25 minutes, the duck should be baked, and then the degree should be reduced to 180 and the potatoes should be added to the pan along with the onion quarters.
When another twenty-five minutes have passed, then the duck must be taken out of the oven and poured over with the juice that was formed during the baking process, and then sent back to the oven.
The next twenty or thirty minutes should be enough for the duck to cook completely. You can check the readiness with a knife. If, when pierced, clear juice emerges from the carcass, then the game can be eaten.

Conclusion

The wild duck is the trophy that every hunter gets, so all game lovers need to be able to cook it. There are many different recipes, but oven baking is the most popular.

Before cooking wild duck, special attention should be paid to its primary processing, which consists in dry or hot plucking. In addition, getting rid of the unpleasant smell of game is of great importance, which is eliminated with the help of lemon juice, apples or a special marinade.

A few more weeks - and the new hunting season starts. And although hunting has now lost its main purpose - to get food, but is more of a hobby, a sport, a way to take a break from the daily routine, still a good trophy is a delight for the hunter's soul. And after that, the search begins for an answer to the question of how best to cook such hard-caught game so as not to spoil it, so that it will be remembered, I would also like to try yummy food and treat good people. But it is not so easy to cook a wild duck, and even more so a bird such as a duck or a coot. And quails can be not only fried. What to do with pigeons?

Royal game

When we read Russian classics, and those who have not read - saw a film about Ivan Vasilyevich for sure, we are surprised by the abundance of fish and game dishes. Indeed, both domestic and wild duck can be cooked in hundreds of ways. How about us? Shurpa or fry - that's the whole menu. So we want to correct the situation - to your attention are recipes for dishes that can be prepared from poultry caught in the summer-autumn hunt.

A classic of the genre - roast duck with apples

How to clean a bird properly

Many hunters, without further ado (especially if the wife refuses to pinch and gut the game), simply rip off the skin and throw away all the insides, including such a valuable liver. But in vain! After all, it is on the skin that most of the duck fat is located, which becomes larger towards winter. This is generally a very valuable product: wild goose fat. Previously, it was carefully collected, heated and used as a medicine for colds, burns, and digestive problems. And of course in cooking. It’s not the soap-like fat we throw away from the store broilers quite rightly. Duck fat is yellow, fragrant, completely odorless of mud.

So let's move on. You need to clean the bird only when it has completely cooled down - at least 3 hours after the shot. If the hunt is overnight, and the weather is warm, you need to prepare the carcass for storage - without plucking gut, rinse the abdomen with water, dry with a napkin, salt and stuff with nettles. So it can be stored for up to 2 days.

If you are going to cook, then you need to pluck the duck. There are two ways - dry and wet. Dry - just pluck the feathers, the fluff can be collected separately and then used to make pillows. Burn the remains over an open fire. Feet, head and wing tips are best separated.

This is how one wild duck turns out to be an exquisite dinner from a French restaurant.

Wild duck with ham

Generously stuff the peeled carcass with pieces of fresh bacon, put in a rooster and cook over medium heat, constantly pouring over the flowing juice. During this time, fry the onion, add the ham uncut in thin strips, simmer, add a couple of tablespoons of duck juice. Add juice from one lemon to the sauce, a jar of capers (sold in supermarkets), stew a little more and add to the duck to the duck. Close the lid for 15 minutes. Serve with any vegetable, especially boiled broccoli sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Spicy wild duck

Divide the carcass into portions, cutting off the skeleton (it can be used for broth). Salt the meat and fry over high heat on both sides, then add boiling broth or water to the pan and cook over low heat until tender. Pour 2 cups of dry red wine into a small saucepan, add 10 juniper berries, allspice, 5-6 peeled small onions (best of all shallots) and about 200 grams of pitted cherries. Cook until the onion is ready, then take it out, and salt the sauce, pepper and put the meat in it, cook for about 10 minutes. Choose the duck, and boil the sauce to the volume of a glass - it will become viscous. Put the meat on a dish and pour over the sauce. The aroma and taste are divine.

Toasted pieces
Cooking the sauce

Duck with milk mushrooms and cucumbers (dish from the royal table)

Prepare the duck, rinse 1 kg of salted milk mushrooms, cut into large pieces, fill the belly and sew. Do not salt! Fry for 2 hours on pork lard in a roaster, pouring over the flowing juice. The sauce is prepared like this: remove the skin from pickled cucumbers and remove the seeds. Chop or chop finely, add a bunch of chopped dill and pour 0.5 liters of strong bone broth, boil for 5 minutes. Cut the fried duck into pieces, put on a plate with mushrooms and pour over the sauce.

Duck with mushrooms

Wild duck in tomato sauce (Italian dish)

Clean the carcasses (small diving ducks or teals are also great). Fry salted carcasses in vegetable oil (olive) until golden brown, remove, wrap in foil. Fry the crushed offal in the same oil, then add a glass of dry white wine, a teaspoon of sugar and spices. Boil for 2 minutes. Dip 6-7 medium tomatoes in boiling water. Remove the skin, remove the seeds, chop finely and add to the sauce. When it boils, put the duck into pieces and simmer until tender.

Serve with boiled crumbly rice. To prevent it from sticking together, you must first fry the rice a little in a dry frying pan. Then add a little red pepper (paprika), salt, pour boiling water to cover the rice by 1.5-2 cm (depending on the amount) and darken for 15 minutes under the lid. The rice will absorb all the water and will be juicy, but crumbly.

Duck in lemon sauce

Divide the carcass into pieces (no skeleton). Put several layers of thinly sliced smoked bacon or bacon in a deep frying pan or saucepan, melt a little, add onion chopped into rings (2 pieces), carrot and parsley root, simmer over low heat until a pleasant aroma appears, add duck meat, salt, pepper, sprinkle 2 teaspoons of sugar. Simmer, covered, for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Pour over the meat with the juice below. Then remove the meat, wipe the juice through a sieve, add the juice and zest of 1 lemon (you can just pass it through a meat grinder). Bring to a boil, add meat, bring to a boil again. Serve with potatoes.

To deliciously cook wild duck at home, you must follow a number of recommendations and tips. First, it is not as fat as poultry. Secondly, it has a specific smell similar to fishy. First you need to get rid of it by marinating the meat in wine or leaving it in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Some meat rigidity is inherent in wild poultry, which is why it is initially soaked for a rather long time.

Basic rules on how to cook wild duck at home

If the hunters brought the duck to you, you first need to pluck the feathers. To do this carefully, the carcass should be scalded with boiling water or dipped in a bucket of hot water for a couple of minutes. After that, the tough feathers are removed faster.
Then you should sprinkle the duck with flour, rub it into the skin, scorch the remnants of the feathers on the fire of a gas burner
Now you need to get rid of the insides. First, they cut off the head, paws, tips of the wings, why they make an incision in the stomach and pull out the giblets. The whole process is completed by a thorough washing of the carcass under running water
If you decide to bake the whole wild duck, the preparation is over. Otherwise, cut the carcass into small pieces.

To remove excess fat, small cuts are made on the skin with a sharp knife and removed with a toothpick.
The prepared carcass needs to be kept in the refrigerator for a couple of days so that it reaches
Using bay leaves and strong-smelling spices is not recommended. Enough pepper and salt
Many housewives soak wild duck meat, so it becomes softer.
For the marinade, you can use white wine, mulled wine, vinegar
If you rub the skin with coarse table salt, the duck will turn out in a delicate, crispy crust.

After fulfilling all these requirements, it will not be difficult to cook a wild bird deliciously.

How to cook whole wild duck in a duck?

To deliciously cook the whole bird in a rooster, rub it with salt and lightly fry it in a pan. This gives the meat softness and allows excess fat to be melted out.
You will need:

whole carcass
2 sour green apples
2 onions
half a glass of any broth
half a glass of red wine, better than dry
ground pepper, salt, juniper berries
a spoonful of potato starch
two tablespoons of cream

Preparation:

First you need to grate the wild duck with salt, pepper, preferably white, fry on all sides in a pan
Then you should wash the apples, cut them into circles or cubes.
We shift the fried poultry to the rooster, cover it with pieces of apples, berries and onion rings. Fill all this with a mixture of red wine, broth and cream
We put the closed roaster in a hot oven, cook for about 2 hours
To cook a wild bird deliciously, you need to periodically take it out and pour it with fat, which is melted from the carcass

The finished duck should be discussed, and the starch should be poured into the remaining juice from it, mixed well. This will make a delicious sauce that is served separately.

How to cook soft wild duck with bacon?

You will need:

whole carcass
a piece of bacon weighing 100 grams
half a packet of butter
large onion
vinegar for marinade 9%
peppercorns and ground, salt, cloves

Preparation:

You can cook wild duck at home deliciously and quickly enough. However, before that, it should be poured with vinegar, left to marinate so overnight. Some housewives use sour milk or kefir for marinade. After that, we listen to the carcass, rinse very well with cold water
Cut the bacon into small pieces, the onion into thick enough rings so as not to fall apart during cooking
Salt with ground pepper must be mixed, rub this mixture into the duck inside and out. It is not necessary to regret the salt, it will not work to oversalt
Put chopped bacon, onion, cloves and peppercorns, pieces 6-7 in the cavity. Bay leaves are not used when cooking wild birds, it does not combine with the smell of their meat. This should be remembered so as not to spoil the taste of the dish.
Melt the butter, pour it onto the bottom of the goose maker. We put the prepared carcass there, close the lid very tightly
We put the duck in the oven, on the lowest shelf, and cook for 2 hours. Every 20 minutes, you need to get the rooster, turn the carcass, water it with juice. You can add a little water so that the juice is not too thick, covers the top of the carcass

Before serving, the bird is cut into pieces, poured over with thick juice. The meat turns out to be very soft, spicy, everyone who has tried it says that it is very tasty. If there is no lard at home, you can replace it with lard. In the absence of a rooster, you can cook the dish on a baking sheet, covering it with foil.

How to bake duck with cherry sauce?

If cherries ripen in the garden in the summer, you can cook a wild bird with a sauce from these delicious berries. You just need to buy a bottle of red wine in advance.
You will need:

large duck carcass, weighing about 2 kilograms
half a kilo of fresh, pitted cherries
2 cups dry red wine
salt and pepper

Preparation:

First, the whole carcass must be coated inside and outside with pepper, coarse table salt, make several punctures with a fork
Then you should place it in a tight plastic bag, you can wrap it with cling film. After that, the bird must be refrigerated for 3 hours.
We take it out of the refrigerator, remove the film, put it on a baking sheet and place it in the oven for an hour and a half. From time to time it is necessary to get the bird and water it with the fat melted from under the skin
Now we need to prepare the cherries. Fill it with red wine, add salt, pepper, simmer over low heat under a lid for 5 minutes
Pour the cooked cherry sauce over the finished duck, simmer in the oven for another 10 minutes. We take it out, cool it down a little. Cut into pieces

Pour the finished dish on the plates with cherry sauce, garnish with fresh cherries. This duck turns out to be tender, fragrant and amazing in taste. Wine with a pungency diet, spices - a spicy taste, cherries - a sweetish aroma. All together it turns out delicious, looks beautiful.

How to cook wild duck stew?

You will need:

1 medium sized carcass
a slice of pork with fat layers
50 grams of butter
5 large ripe tomatoes
1 carrot
any greens
a glass of meat broth, you can chicken
half a glass of apple cider vinegar
pepper, salt, oil

Preparation:

To make the duck soft and juicy, it is best to cut the carcass into small pieces. Then they must be marinated with apple cider vinegar for 3 hours.
We wash the pieces, coat with pepper, salt
Tomatoes should be chopped in a food processor or blender. Grate the carrots, finely chop the greens with a knife
Melt butter at the bottom of the frying pan and gosper, put carrots, chopped onions, herbs, fry everything together with pieces of pork
We spread the pieces of poultry on top, continue to fry, turning them over to the other side
Now you can pour everything with hot broth, add chopped tomatoes. Close the lid, simmer over low heat until tender

If necessary, you can add more broth or hot water. Stew the wild duck until the juice is reduced by half. Sometimes the pieces must be turned over, the lid must be kept closed. If you cook everything correctly, the dish turns out to be tender, tasty, spicy.

All these recipes are understandable even for beginners, simple to prepare. The main thing is to properly cut the carcass, soak it in water or marinade. For the marinade, you can use vinegar, lemon juice, kefir, mineral water. It is recommended to take only pepper from spices.

Wild duck meat is not very fatty, but tasty. It is difficult to find wild duck in large sales, most often we meet with it in restaurants, where various delicious dishes are prepared from it. Recipes from wild duck are varied, you can cook roasts from it, bake in the oven, stew with vegetables, make soups, but I will tell you how my mother roasts this game.

Cooking roasted wild duck

Before you start cooking the meat, the mallard carcass should be carefully plucked, then scorched over the fire (dad uses a special lamp), then the duck should be washed and gutted. Further, to give the bird softness and make its meat a little juicier, you need to lower the prepared carcass in cold water and leave it for 2 hours.

Very often, wild duck meat has a specific fish smell. In order to get rid of it, I can offer an interesting but effective way. To do this, you need a deep brazier, preferably a gosper, which we fill halfway with water, put the duck in it. We send the brazier to an oven preheated to 200 ° C for 5 - 7 minutes, then remove the brazier from the oven and turn the duck over. We send it back to the oven for another 5 - 7 minutes. This method will help remove the unpleasant odor from the meat. You can now continue cooking the meat.

In order to roast wild duck, you will need the following ingredients

Ingredients:

Wild duck (we have two carcasses, one small about 300 grams, and the second more weight about 800 grams),
Salt to taste
Spices to taste (it is advisable to use a special seasoning for game),
Lemon - 1 piece
Table vinegar (9%) - 2 tbsp. spoons.

Cooking process:

Before cooking, cut the wild duck carcass into portioned pieces and transfer to a deep container. Mom cuts each piece of meat so that the duck meat is soaked more thoroughly.

As a spice for the preparation of wild duck, my mother used a special seasoning for game, it was brought to us by friends from Germany, we have not met such one here. But you can also choose the spices for cooking game yourself. Ideal spices for game are: black and red peppers, red bell peppers, sage, rosemary, caraway seeds, basil, marjoram, and juniper also gives a very pleasant taste to wild duck meat. Juniper completely discourages all unpleasant tastes, imparting a peculiar taste and aroma to the meat. So the choice is huge, we choose according to your taste.

Now we rub each piece of meat with seasoning and salt, carefully so that the meat is completely saturated. Squeeze the juice from a lemon (small), you can also remove the zest and add it to the meat. Pour the juice over the game and add the vinegar. Mix everything thoroughly. You can remove the vinegar and salt and pour the soy sauce over the duck meat, we tried this option too, it has a pleasant aroma and taste.

Stir the meat and cover the container with a lid, send it to the refrigerator to marinate for 8 - 12 hours. During this time, the bird will be saturated with all the aromas and will become much softer.

Then we put the game in a large frying pan and pour over the allocated juice, if it is not enough, then add half a glass of water. We close the pan with a lid and simmer over medium heat for 30 - 40 minutes.

Then, when almost all the water has evaporated, you should open the lid and fry the stewed duck on all sides until golden brown. We didn’t add any oil or fat, and what was melted from the poultry was enough.

Put the finished meat on a dish and, if desired, decorate with fresh vegetables and herbs. Very often I came across recipes in which sweet and sour lingonberry jam is often served as an addition to game, for more piquancy of this already unusual meat.

It should be remembered that meat should not be eaten too often, as it is too fatty and heavy.

Bon appetit and good recipes!

Wild duck meat has a strong unpleasant odor, reminiscent of fishy.

To get rid of it, an uncut bird can be kept in the cold for several days. Also, when cutting, the skin is removed along with subcutaneous fat - it is he who is the source of the unpleasant odor.

After removing the giblets and entrails, the carcass is thoroughly washed and soaked for several hours in cool water with the addition of vinegar in a proportion of 1 tbsp. l. for 1 liter. After that, you can start cooking.

Peel the apples, cut into slices, remove the seeds.
Cut the onion into thin half rings.
Dry the washed carcass with paper towels. Rub inside and out with salt. Put apples, onions and rosemary sprigs inside.
Brush the duck liberally with olive oil. Place in a baking dish.

Wild duck meat is quite tough. It should be baked for at least 2 hours at an oven temperature of 200 ° C. An hour before the duck is ready, you can add potatoes, cut into large wedges. Vegetable salad can be served with ready-made meat.

How to cook wild duck with lemon

Wild bird meat often smells like mud or fish. Blanching will help eliminate this - before starting cooking, the duck must be dipped in boiling water for a couple of minutes.

Lemon juice in the marinade will allow you to finally get rid of the remnants of the smell.

Required Ingredients:

1 cut duck carcass weighing 1.5-2 kg;
60 g of honey;
60 g of mustard;
1 lemon;
4-5 pcs. potatoes;
2 onions;
Vegetable oil;
Salt pepper.

You can use both grain mustard and regular table mustard.

Squeeze juice from lemon, mix with honey and mustard. Rub the duck inside and outside with salt, completely coat with the resulting sauce. Send to the refrigerator to marinate for 2-3 hours.
Cut the onion into thin half rings, mash to release the juice. Cut the peeled potatoes into wedges.
Stuff the duck with onions and potatoes, coat with vegetable oil. Place in a baking dish and place in the oven.

It takes about 2 hours to bake the duck. If the bird weighs up to 2 kg, it may take 2.5 hours. During the cooking process, the duck needs to be poured with the fat melted from it 2-3 times.

The dish is immediately served with fresh vegetables and herbs.