Smoked Duck Soup

What to do with a smoked duck?  I decided to de-bone it and prepare a duck soup stock.  I froze the broth in a large FoodSaver bag and eventually prepared a lovely duck soup.  The term "duck stock" is honestly quite an understatement as after boiling the bones, what's left behind is hearty enough to stand alone.

Duck Stock - "Caldo de pato"

- Carved duck carcas, divided into pieces

- 20cups cold water

- 3 celery sticks

- 8 mini carrots

- 1/4 onion

- 4 bay leaves

- Thyme

- Pepper

- Parsley

- Salt

Preparing the Duck stock: (similar recipe can be found here.)

1.  Took one whole duck, which I had previously smoked, deboned it and placed the bones in a cauldron of water.  The volume of water was purely dependent on the size of the cauldron.
2.  Added chopped onion, celery, carrots and other ingredients.  The vegetables were diced in larger pieces.
3. Add a crushed bay leaf, spices, and salt and pepper.
4.  Allow to simmer for about 2 hours.  Your kitchen area will smell fantastic during this process.

5.  After allowing to cool, pour through a cheesecloth to strain out all but the broth itself.
6.  The vegetables should be preserved for another project.  I'm not sure what that is yet, but the flavor they retain is remarkable.
7.  Freeze the stock; I chose to use my FoodSaver and ended up with two large bags.

Preparation of the Soup:  (Somewhat inspired by what I've found here.)

1.  Thaw the stock.
2.  Add chopped duck meat, mushrooms and spinach.
3.  Prepare your noodles separately.  I like farfalle, or fusilli.
4.  Place the noodles in bottom of the servering bowl.  Ladle soup in the bowl to cover and enjoy.

This is a very hearty soup and frankly might be too heavy for an appetizer.

Enjoy.

Smoking Superbowl Weekend

My latest meat smoking / BBQ experiment was conducted on the Saturday before the Superbowl.  It was my largest meat selection so far and I was extremely pleased with the results.


Meat:
Duck, whole duck including head and feet
Pork Spare Ribs, 4 racks, 8.6lbs, two with spicy rub, one with wasabi and one plain
Beef Chuck Roast, 3.4lbs

Wood:
The chips had been soaking in a cooler and even developed a slime on the surface, which was cleaned off.  The water was drained Friday afternoon and the damp file was wood was allowed to set outside in the open cooler.

Brine (Duck):
- 7 cups of water
- Pinch of Thyme
- Sliced Orange
- ½ about of salt
- some sugar
- Ground black pepper
- 5 smashed garlic gloves
- 4 bay leaves

Preparing the duck brine on the stove.  The brine and whole duck were placed in a glass jar for 8 hours in the fridge.

Beef Prep:
The beef chuck roast was injected with melted butter using a syringe.  The butter did squirt out and it was a little weird.

Rub (spicy):
This rub included the same ingredients as previously, but with less cayenne pepper.  The rub was also mixed with the mustard in a bowl and applied to two sets of ribs as a slurry.  It did not adhere to the meat as well as applying the dry ingredients first and layering the mustard on top.  Butter and black pepper was added as well.

Don't do this!  I mixed the rub and mustard together into a "slurry".  It didn't adhere well to the meat and crumbled off when cooked.  I recommend spraying the meat with light oil, applying the dry rub like a boss and they then optionally applying a 1/4" thick spread of mustard to cover.

Rub (wasabi):
- 1.75 oz of wasabi power
- Water
- Soy sauce
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Sea salt
This rub was very runny and wasn’t like a rub at all.  It did stick surprisingly well to a single rack of ribs.


All the meats were placed in the smoker at 7am on Saturday 2/2.  Temperature was set at 225 deg F.  The duck was placed above the plain ribs so that the duck fat would drip down over it.

Chuck was removed at 6pm with an IT reading on the igrill of 217 deg F. Wasabi and plain ribs were removed at 630pm with an IT of 210 deg F. They had been on the lowest rack. Duck was removed at 230pm and allowed to cool to serve as deli meat. The best smoke occurred at 250 deg F. The side dampers were open. The top damper was 3/4 closed.  Beef and ribs were allowed to cool for an hour.

Results:
- The spicy ribs were good, but there was a problem.  I had mixed the rub and mustard into a slurry to apply to the ribs prior to smoking.  This was a mistake.  The slurry did not soak into the ribs and was too thick and goopy.  The ribs were best with this coating removed.
- The wasabi ribs imparted no wasabi flavor
- The ribs placed underneath the duck were the best, probably due to their exposure to the dripping duck fat.  This should absolutely be repeated.
- The beef chuck was excellent and pulled nicely using just two forks.
- The duck was served cold and was excellent.  The brine should be repeated.

Nice smoke ring.

The beef shredded nicely using two forks.

The beef didn't make it to plates; was consumed on the cutting board.