Canned Duck, Anyone?

[rick54]

Yesterday, the wife and I butchered our broiler chickens, and canned them today. We're very pleased with how they're canning up so far. The question I now have concerns the 16 Pekin ducks we have coming up. That will require a good amount of freezer space should we go that route. I'm wondering if anyone has canned duck meat before? If so, do you have any pro and con thoughts regarding the canning of duck? Thank you!

 

[AccidentalFarmr]

If it were me, I'd break them down first. During processing remove the breasts and legs. Reserve the bodies to make stock or demi glace. The breasts can be packaged and frozen as is and don't take up a ton of space. For the legs I would make confit to preserve it that way. Take a bunc of duck fat and render it down and then in a low oven cook the legs in the fat. Once the meat is tender and pulls away from the bone you can pull them from oven and pick all of the meat from the legs. Pack in jars, cover with the liquid fat and process them how you usually do. There are a ton of confit recipes on he web to search for, all pretty similar. Most will call to cure the legs slightly before cooking, which I would recommend. Once you have the basic ratio you can add spices and other flavorings that suit your tastes. Good luck.

 

[rick54]

Farmr, thank you for your suggestions. I was giving serious thought to breaking them down at slaughter, since they do seem to be only breast and that is a lot of carcass to take up valuable freezer space with.

 

[AccidentalFarmr]

You'd be surprised at how much meat you'll yield off the legs, and precooking them in a low oven makes them easy to pick and preserve. Out of those 16 ducks I would expect at least 8-10 pounds of meat, assuming they're similar in size to the commercial ducks (also pekin) that I've used a lot in the past. Breaking them down ahead of time also allows you to render and save all of that delicious fat.

 

[rick54]

AccidentalFarmr, thank you for the encouragement!