'Twas The Night Before Good Eats'

[Lovestolaugh]

Alton is back to his old self as wacky as ever and I really enjoyed the episode last night!!
Now hes got me wanting to make 'Wassail', figgy pudding {I think that's what that was}, and Aged 'kosher-ed' duck.
I have my own great stuffing/dressing recipe so I'm not too interested in his.
That 'Wassail' stuff is pretty scary looking!! Mixing wine with ale? Then mixing eggs into that? Sounds yukky
I'm still curious so I'll cut down the recipe and make a super small batch.
If a whole civilization drank this concoction back in history how bad could it be?
The duck looked delicious!! Now to figure out how to order a fresh long Island duck.
Looking forward to more good eats Alton!!!
All the actors who played the Ghosts did a great job!!

[mccrum]

So I've been inspired to make duck this weekend, but, unfortunately, I tuned in a little too late to see anything prior to the slicing the skin along the breast to let the fat escape. Other than slicing 'em open in order to spread on the broiler pan, can anyone tell me what I missed?

Thanks in advance,
Jeff

[Lovestolaugh]

From what I remember, Alton cut the back bone out, folded the wings under I think, lay it on a pan skin up, Oh yea, it was a drip pan, so the moisture could drip out of the bird onto paper towels underneath the pan. I'm not quite sure at what point he put the slashes in the skin. Then he covered the whole bird with lots of heavy Kosher salt, sorry but I don't recall the amount. He called it Kosher-ing. Then he put the bird uncovered in the bottom of the fridge for 4 days I think. When he took it out of the fridge he called the duck '"mummified". Then he baked it but I'm not sure for how long. I think he may have turned the baking sheet 1/2 way through cooking. Yesterday I went on food network trying to find the recipe for this episode but I couldn't find them. Maybe they've been posted since then. I'll have to look again because I want to make these recipes too!!
Try looking on http://www.foodnetwork.com for the Good Eats Show they usually put up the original recipes from the show and sometimes even a video.
Hope this helped a bit!

[mccrum]

Lovestolaugh, many thanks! You got exactly what I missed (cutting out the back bone). It looked like the wings, et. al. were spread across the pan and not folded back, but I could very easily be wrong.

The breast is scored gently (only through the 1/4" layer of skin and fat, not the meat) once per side from top to bottom. Salt amount wasn't precise, just enough to cover and dry brine (probably 1-2 tbl) and after the fridge time, whatever left is wiped off. Oh, and paper towels go in the bottom of the roasting pan to soak up any liquids. These are removed before cooking.

350 for 30 minutes, rotate the pan, 30 more minutes. Crank it to 450 for about 10-15 for crispy skin.

At any rate, I'll find out this weekend, Daffy is in the fridge right now.

[okbye]

They were splayed out for the drying process but he did tuck the wings before baking it. To slit the skin he laid the knife flat on it's side and ran it across the skin so it didn't penetrate even the fat layer. There was a salt ratio, I'll have to go back and look.

I still have it on the tivo if anything else was missed.

[jasonmolinari]

He used 1 tablespoon of salt per pound of duck.

[mccrum]

Awesome, thanks for the help all, time for more salt then...

[Lovestolaugh]

P.S. {and welcome to the message board by the way!}
One thing I think I remember Alton doing, that I left out of my last post was that I think he might have also cut or scored the breast bone on the inside/underside of the bird as part of his prep.I could be mistaken, but I thought I saw him do something like that.
Good luck with Daffy!!! Let us know how he tastes!!!

[mccrum]

Will do. Day one shows him looking somewhat pink and blotchy as moisture is being drawn up during the koshering. Really fascinating to watch. Plus, it does take up a lot of space, I can't avoid seeing him.

[DinerMo]

P.S. {and welcome to the message board by the way!}
One thing I think I remember Alton doing, that I left out of my last post was that I think he might have also cut or scored the breast bone on the inside/underside of the bird as part of his prep.

He did that as part of the butterfly-ing so to lay* the bird flat.



*I chose this wording purposefully--it goes rather well Alton's statement at the beginning of the episode about laying down, doncha think? (and yeah, yeah, yeah, I can throw no stones about bad grammar, but mistakes like that can make me titter for a ridiculous amount of time)

[aem]

We always do a duck for Christmas dinner, and this year we tried AB's salted and spatchcocked version. I found it really salty -- what have other people thought about it? And the skin could have been crisper. Any comments or experience with this?

(We'd just done an air-dried duck a week or so earlier, which was lovely, so I'm comparing not to the Platonic ideal of Duckliness but to an actual recent bird, FWIW.)