How to cook or track duck tacos

DD265

Hubby wants to try this recipe from Death By Burrito. I can't get the photo to upload but thankfully Google copies text from photos...

Makes 6 Tacos

1kg lard
2 clementines
1 garlic bulb, cut in half
25g fresh thyme
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt
4 duck taranto
1 cos lettuce, shredded
6 small Corn Tortillas
100g Pico de Gallo
1 ripe mango, peeled, stoned and cut into thin strips

Preheat the oven to 120-C/250°F

Put the lard into a large saucepan and melt over a medium heat.

Using a vegetable peeler, remove all the peel from the clementines in strips add these to the lard along with the garlic, thyme, bay leaves and salt. Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 30 minutes to let all the flavours infuse.

Slash the skin of each duck breast 3-4 times. Place the duck in a deep roasting dish, pour over the infused lard, and cook in the oven for 1 hour,

Remove the dish from the oven and leave the duck to rest in the fat for 1 hour, then remove the duck from the fat. Heat a large dry frying pan and place the duck, skin side down, to sear and crisp the skin, then remove from the pan and slice thinly.

Segment the clementines, and put the slices into a bowl, then toss with the shredded lettuce. Warm the tortillas in a dry frying pan for 20 seconds on each side, then arrange a layer of lettuce and clementine slices on the tortillas and top with the duck slices, Pico de Gallo and mango strips.

I am not sure about cooking in 1kg of lard, but it seems pretty central to getting the flavour. I don't know how to track it - the weight of it to begin with less how much is left when the duck comes out?

Any suggestions for alternative, healthier ways to cook the duck? We have an air fryer, but I'm not sure how I'd get the flavour in.

rosebarnalice

I did a quick search for "low fat duck" and came up with several different recipes and cooking techniques. Ask St Google and see what she says!

acpgee

That recipe seems to be in the same spirit of duck confit. That's a french technique of slowly cooking duck legs in duck or goose fat which gives a melting soft texture and was also used as a method for preservation as the duck legs could be kept several months in the solidified fat prior to the existence of refrigeration. I would compare calories for raw duck leg with calories for duck leg confit to work out a multiplier.

acpgee

Peking duck breast is essentially Chinese duck tacos. When I started doing it I followed this recipe
https://omnivorescookbook.com/crispy-chinese-duck-breast/
but now make several modifications.

I don't bother to marinate the duck breasts but do dry brine, which means salting the normal amount a few hours in advance or overnight. I like to score skin in one direction against the grain of the meat, which later serve as guidelines for cutting. I start skin side down in a cold pan heated up slowly to low heat, then turn up to medium to render off as much fat as possible. Press down on the duck breasts with a wooden spoon to help flatten to skin for maximum contact. You can also use the weight of a second frying pan but I find this conducts too much heat to the non skin side, which is fine if you don't mind your duck well done. Once the skin is well browned I flip over and check with the meat thermometer. My own preference is medium rare, which is about 57C. If you want rare use 52C and well done is 72C.

Don't bother making the pancakes yourself. You can buy them from the deep freeze section of the asian supermarket or just use soft taco shells. I serve with hoisin sauce, thinly sliced cucumber and either chive or thinly sliced scallions.

Pictured here with Vietnamese watercress soup for extra greens.

goal06082021

That recipe sounds incredible tbh, but yes, it's basically quick duck confit ("proper" confit has a longer cook time); I would log the duck meat as duck confit and log each taco ingredient separately (e.g. one tortilla, 30g duck confit, 30g lettuce, etc).

If you have access to a sous-vide setup, I've seen a recipe for sous-vide confit that calls for far less fat - the vacuum basically allows you to confit the duck in the fat that's already on/in it.

acpgee

I broke up a goose this Xmas because Covid restrictions meant no one was coming over for dinner. I confited the legs and wings in the sous vide and that required much less fat than the traditional method. The fat rendered from roasting the crown for Xmas dinner provided enough fat to confit the dark meat with the help of the sous vide. Less clean up too.

DD265

Thanks, I will have a look at duck confit - not something I've done before!

DD265

For anybody that wondered, the recipe I posted is lovely. We used 2 duck breasts and made 4 tacos, which was enough for two of us. We didn't add the salt, or the pico de gallo.

acpgee

Now that I have a tortilla press I am going to try the duck taco recipe with breasts. I will confit in the sous vide.

Incidentally I have been getting great results on confit duck legs in the sous vide. I salt the legs, then put enough legs for one meal for the household into each ziplock with a tablespoon of duck or goose fat (available in supermarkets around Xmas), a clove of pressed garlic and a few sprigs of thyme. Close the bags and sous vide at 68C for 24 hours. Finish for 15 minutes under a hot broiler or in an air fryer to crisp up the skin. You can parboil some cubed potatoes for 3-4 minutes and shake drained potatoes in the sous vide bag to coat in the duck fat and toss them under the broiler too. The par boiled potatoes also take about 15 minutes. In the meantime you can make a veggie side.

Do several bags at the same time and toss anything you don't eat on day 1 into the freezer. To reheat, defrost and broil for 15 minutes to crisp up the skin. I do the sous vide step in a large bucket to fit 12 duck legs.

acpgee

DD265 wrote: »

For anybody that wondered, the recipe I posted is lovely. We used 2 duck breasts and made 4 tacos, which was enough for two of us. We didn't add the salt, or the pico de gallo.

I also did 2 duck breasts. Each ziplock bag contained one duck breast, a quarter teaspoon of salt because I like that cured taste of duck confit, the zest of a clementine, a pinch of thyme, two cloves of pressed garlic and a tablespoon of duck fat. I use a citrus zester and found that for soft clementines zesting in the equatorial direction was easier than from pole to pole. I sous vide at 68C overnight. I found searing in the frying pan rather difficult so tossed the duck skin side up in the air fryer (or broiler) for 10 minutes at the highest setting to crisp up the skin. The duck was still a little pink with this treatment.

Instead of pico de gallo I added Mexican pickled red onion for the acidic, allium note as I normally keep a jar of that in the fridge. Added a dollop of mole sauce which I also had lying around. We are not big meat eaters so one breast was enough for several small street size tacos each (10 cm tortillas) for the two of us. The other breast went into the freezer.