I just ate my first Muscovy... (don't look if you love Muscovies!)

elizabethbinary

Songster
9 Years
Mar 22, 2010
1,580
7
149
Brisbane, Australia
The meat is INSANE. I think it honestly is my new favourite meat. I braised her for two hours in the oven with naught more than wine, thyme, water, carrots and onion and she came out more beautiful than she started. Plus she made 1/3rd of a beautiful pillow and about a cup of rendered duck fat. Does anybody know if this is a good amount for a medium sized Muscovy female, "pullet" age? Anyway....

Here she is:

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I made homemade pappardelle to toss her with in her own boiled-down gravy from the pot with butter, cheese, parsely and a couple more thyme leaves.

My husband said I made a most excellent first duck, but I think the gorgeous Muscovy meat had something to do with it. The flavour was just compltely different than most duck, but still duck. It was sortof gamey but not, a nice dark gorgeous colour and even though I skinned her and rendered it, plenty of fat was left there (even though Muskys are low fat!) to flavour her beautifully and make one of the most gorgeous gravies you've ever seen.

This is also the first meal I've made from an animal I've bred, hatched, killed, gutted, plucked, rendered and cooked.... all by myself!! (well, I didn't breed her by myself... but with two ducks)
 
Elizabeth that looks amazing, even I would try that ( If it were someone else's duck and someone else cooked it
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) reallly nice looking dinner!
 
Thank you! I'm really chuffed!!! I not only hatched her, I know her parents! Something about knowing that much about my dinner is really cool. Even a guest commented, "I just realized I patted this duck two days ago!" I brined her overnight to rest and made... this. From egg to table, I made DUCK. Chuffed chuffed chuffed! <3

She really really was delicious. The meat on her was uncomparable. I've had worse at the Ritz Carlton, and that was a duck meal I remember to this day.

I killed and clean roosters and an injured baby duck once, but not one this size. I tried plucking but gave up and decided to skin/render her after I got 80% of the downy feathers off for my pillow.

I had intended to use her bones as stock (still have her liver and neck though!) but the cats made short work of those when my back was turned.
 
That looks great!
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I will have my first ducks this year and can't wait to get them, I plan on processing the extras. I have never had duck so I am not sure how it is going to taste. I have heard it is great, so I will just have to wait and see.




*I had to look up the word chuffed I have never heard it before.
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I love Muscovies but I just had to take a peak.
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I must say your meal looks delicious. Looks like you did a great job. Congratulations on your 1st duck. I have too many males, so I have been thinking about a duck meal as well. Did you have to do anything special before you processed her? Did you have feed her just corn and place her in a kennel on a concrete floor to clean her out? Or did you just go out one day and do the deed? So it was difficult plucking her? How many downed feathers were you able to get for your pillow?

I hear that Muscovy meat is the best. I guess I will have to try.

Way to go!
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Honestly... a dog attacked her and she was bad off so I culled her and hung her to eat, so she wasn't specially processed. She was SUPPOSED to be, and she was also SUPPOSED to be slaughtered last week (she always was a meat duck) but then this whole thing happened and I had to do it the day before yesterday. She was going to be on a meat finisher for two weeks, but my husband forgot to put the ducks in the Green Mile after the Big Rooster Cull.

It wasn't difficult to pluck, just time consuming and I was getting annoyed. The BEST pillow feathers are, nicely, around the bumhole.
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I got 1/3rd a normal bed sized pillow. had I plucked her properly I could've gotten 2/5ths or even 1/2 a pillow out of her, but I chose only the softest and nicest of her feathers. I wasn't in the mood to trim down the bigger quilly ones... when I slaughtered her originally I thought she was another PET duck and I was a mess crying before I noticed the pet was outside... if it was my pet duck, she'd have been feathered and buried, but since it wasn't, I decided to eat her as intended.

Muscovy meat is incredible. The taste is divine.

The recipe is pretty simple, I'll take a photo of the one I used. It was just basically brown duck quartered, remove duck from pot and add onions, carrot and thyme to the pot. Add 1/2c wine, 1c water and duck back and bake at 200c (400Fish) for 1 1/2 - 2 hours, until tender. Remove duck from pot and let cool. Drain (STRAIN NOT DRAIN you WANT the sauce, not the veggies!...well you might want the veggies too OMG) sauces and put in pan and simmer until thick (I added some flour, though). Since it was muscy I didn't need to skim any fat off it like it suggested. Homemade pasta as normal: 100g (or 1 cupish) flour per egg with some salt. Toss shredded duck with gravy, tablespoon or two of butter, some chopped parsley and good parmesan. Actually.. don't need to take a photo of the recipe anymore.

It wasn't difficult but it WAS time consuming... I just figured after waiting a year (I raised her father from a 'ling, man!!) I could wait another 3 hours.
 
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