Hi BYC!
Yesterday I processed my first meat ever! A duck - the one that was making too much noise. He was younger and smaller than I would have like, but he was just too much for me and the neighbours, so he had to go (in fact I think it was a female as I didn't see the testes).
The two hardest things I found were:
- Making a nod strong enough to suspend the duck by the feet (kept sliding)
- Cutting the jugular
- Separating the bones at the proper place (like in the joint). I had a hard time removing the legs and neck without having to cut through bone.
The rest was relatively easy, I just was a little slow. Took about one hour from the time I got my knife out to the time everything was cleaned up.
So I hung the duck upside down, by the feet. Then I tried to slice the jugular. For some reason, I thought the neck would almost slice all through and the head would barely hand on. I was wrong... I am not sure if I truly hit the right spot on the first try. It bled in a steady flow for a few seconds and then the bird flapped its wings a bit and (oh no) fell from the cord!!!!!! Then he was walking around like nothing happened, and the blood stopped. Oh gee.... so as fast as possible, I held its head and did 1-2 more cuts to be really sure.. and then manually picked him up until he bled out. Wasn't as fast as expected. I don't think I hit the proper spot on the first attempt.
So anyhow, I wish it could have been faster, but I am learning.. at least I wasn't traumatised and was able to give it a few more cuts.
Then I soaked it in 140-150F water. It was fairly easy to pluck. but I felt I was slow. I was starting to be afraid of contamination, so I didn't pluck all the wings. I did the part closest to the body, with more meat, and ditched the rest.
There are still many little feathers on the duck, but I won't be eating the skin anyway. I preferred more feathers and less salmonella
Here is the (almost final) final product (I need to remove the tail, I realized I left too much lol Again, was struggling to not cut through the bones..). Will be put in the slow cooker tomorrow and served with blueberry sauce (made from my own blueberries!!).
MMmm. I hope I did it right and that it will taste good!
Yesterday I processed my first meat ever! A duck - the one that was making too much noise. He was younger and smaller than I would have like, but he was just too much for me and the neighbours, so he had to go (in fact I think it was a female as I didn't see the testes).
The two hardest things I found were:
- Making a nod strong enough to suspend the duck by the feet (kept sliding)
- Cutting the jugular
- Separating the bones at the proper place (like in the joint). I had a hard time removing the legs and neck without having to cut through bone.
The rest was relatively easy, I just was a little slow. Took about one hour from the time I got my knife out to the time everything was cleaned up.
So I hung the duck upside down, by the feet. Then I tried to slice the jugular. For some reason, I thought the neck would almost slice all through and the head would barely hand on. I was wrong... I am not sure if I truly hit the right spot on the first try. It bled in a steady flow for a few seconds and then the bird flapped its wings a bit and (oh no) fell from the cord!!!!!! Then he was walking around like nothing happened, and the blood stopped. Oh gee.... so as fast as possible, I held its head and did 1-2 more cuts to be really sure.. and then manually picked him up until he bled out. Wasn't as fast as expected. I don't think I hit the proper spot on the first attempt.
So anyhow, I wish it could have been faster, but I am learning.. at least I wasn't traumatised and was able to give it a few more cuts.
Then I soaked it in 140-150F water. It was fairly easy to pluck. but I felt I was slow. I was starting to be afraid of contamination, so I didn't pluck all the wings. I did the part closest to the body, with more meat, and ditched the rest.
There are still many little feathers on the duck, but I won't be eating the skin anyway. I preferred more feathers and less salmonella
Here is the (almost final) final product (I need to remove the tail, I realized I left too much lol Again, was struggling to not cut through the bones..). Will be put in the slow cooker tomorrow and served with blueberry sauce (made from my own blueberries!!).
MMmm. I hope I did it right and that it will taste good!