What's farm-raised duck taste like?

[Sally PB]

a heavy palm of salt,

I have read this description of measure of salt and am trying to picture how much it is. If I fill my cupped palm with salt, that would be nearly 1/4 cup. If I hold my hand flat, it would be more like 1/2-1 tablespoon.

@U_Stormcrow, please explain what a palm of salt actually is.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Its hand held (loosely) flat. No need to stretch the fingers backwards or anything. For me, its about 1 1/2 tsp or 1/2 Tblsp. A heavy palm has fingers slightly curled, around 2 or 2 1/2 tsp, a bit shy 1 Tblsp. You are only looking at the pocket formed in the middle, not the whole "hand" less fingers and thumb. /edit that's a "flat" measure, not a pile. With piles, you can easily find 1/2 cup and 1 cup with the right hand position.

That's enough salt to extract the right flavors from the bone, but not so much it becomes very salty when cooking it down. Always have to add more later, when I finalize the dish - but you can always add, taking away is far more difficult. And since many starches need to be cooked in seasoned (salted) water - potatoes most notably - not being able to add more is a direction I try to avoid.

Take some sugar and some measuring spoons, you'd be surprised how useful your hand is for measuring things (except baking, that's chemistry!)

 

[Alaskan]

I would say quail meat is closest to chicken.

Duck meat is much juicier and much darker.

Home grown duck is delicious.

"Regular" duck (any of the mallard based breeds) is very different from Muscovy duck. Both are delicious.

I actually greatly prefer home grown duck and quail over home grown chicken.

 

[Duckiiess]

Raising meat and egg ducks here, rouens and cayugas for meat, khakis for eggs.. the meat is much better than store bought, and nothing really at all like chicken.. as mentioned above, duck breast is best medium rare unless you know the Chinese magic for preparing a good peking duck, which is very hard to do at home. Every step of that method is important, and none can be skipped.
I roast or confit the legs/ wings, turn the carcass and giblets into soup, and pan fry the breasts skin side down 90% of the time to render out the fat.