Praise the Lard : IN THE KITCHEN : As Easy as Duck Salad

We were sitting around the other day talking about lard and I mentioned my favorite duck chicharrones --duck skin cooked until the bits of skin are crisp and brown in the rendered fat. That sounds great, someone said, but what do you do with the rest of the duck?

Well, you could have knocked me over with a tail feather. There is so much you can do with a duck that I hardly knew where to start. If, as the old saying goes, you can use every part of the pig but the squeal, think of a duck as a pig built for two.

To prove my point, I decided to stop at a local Asian market to get a nice fresh duck. The good thing about Asian markets is that the ducks are sold with the heads and feet still on. That’s nice because the feet add a lot to the stock, and with the heads on, you get the full neck, which is loaded with good fat. The thing to check, though, is the cavity. Sometimes the butcher might happen to kind of accidentally forget to leave in the liver--strictly an accident, you understand, but a near-criminal offense in my book. If you’ve ever tasted a terrine made from duck livers--or even duck livers just lightly sauteed in butter--you’ll know why. They’re like Little League foie gras.

Rinse the duck well, then strip away the skin and any fat and cut them into roughly two-inch squares or strips. Put these in a pan with about one-quarter cup of water and cook over medium heat. Pretty soon, the water will evaporate and all you’ll have left is rendered duck fat (the liquid will start to sizzle when this happens). Cook it until the skin bits turn dark-brown, then retrieve them with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels. Let the fat cool, then pour it through a strainer into a glass container.

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The skin cracklings, or chicharrones , are terrific lightly salted--kind of like popcorn from cardiac hell. For the more cautious, they can be used as a garnish. They’re also wonderful folded into an omelet, but don’t tell them you heard it here. The duck fat you’ve just rendered is one of the best cooking mediums around, with a wonderful brown flavor. I love to fry potato pancakes in it.

The next step is to remove the two duck breasts. Using just the point of a very sharp knife, trace the line where the keel bone separates the breasts. Lift up gently and continue tracing the line where the breast meat meets the ribs. When it is free, remove it to a plate, cover it with plastic wrap and repeat on the other side.

The breasts are wonderful broiled, grilled or sauteed in a very hot skillet. And by serving them separate from the legs, you can cook them to only medium-rare, thus keeping them juicy and flavorful. (If you cooked the duck with the legs, of course, you would have to have rare-rare legs to get a medium-rare breast, and that would be very unpleasant.)

Remove the legs from the frame and set them aside. Take off the feet and wings and put them in a roasting pan. Chop the remaining bones into four or five pieces and add them to the feet and wings. Toss in a peeled whole onion and a carrot and roast at 450 degrees 30 to 45 minutes or until everything starts to brown and smell really good. Using a slotted spoon to leave as much fat as possible behind, remove the browned bones and vegetables to a large saucepan. Cover well with water, add some parsley stems and whatever else you like in a poultry stock, and let it cook over medium-high heat for a couple of hours. Top off with water as necessary.

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When the stock is deeply colored, ladle it off into a separate, clean saucepan. At this point you will have a delicious, intensely flavored stock. Either add a little more water to use it as a base for a duck soup (nothing easier), or set it to cook over a low flame and reduce it to a demi-glace, or duck jelly.

The only thing left is the duck legs. These are tendon-y and a bit tough but very flavorful. Put them in a shallow pan with a little duck stock. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Test with a small sharp knife. It should slip into the meat fairly easily. Let the legs cool, then remove the meat. Shred the meat into strips. (If you’re still cooking the stock, throw in the leg bones. What can it hurt?)

This meat is great in salads, as part of a filling for stuffed pastas or even for sandwiches. Do a couple of ducks and you’ll have enough to make duck sausage, if you’re that ambitious.

What’s the bottom line? Out of one 5 1/2-pound duck, I got three cups of duck fat, two cups of duck cracklings, two duck breasts (about 1/4 pound each), five cups of concentrated duck stock (enough for two quarts of soup, or 2 cups of stiff duck demi-glace), and 1 1/2 cups cooked, shredded meat from the legs.

And that’s what you can do with a duck.

I had duck; I had arugula. How to bring them together? I wasn’t sure what my dressing would be until I opened the plastic bag of lettuce. The intensely nutty smell of the arugula reminded me of sesame oil, so I put together this Asian influenced dressing.

DUCK SALAD

1 1/2 cups cooked, minced duck leg meat from 5 1/2-pound duck

Duck Dressing

4 cups arugula, coarsely chopped

1 cup duck chicharrones, coarsely chopped from 1/2 of skin of 5 1/2-pound duck

Toss together minced duck and Duck Dressing in medium work bowl until duck is coated well. Add arugula and toss until lightly coated and well mixed with duck. Divide among 4 chilled plates and sprinkle chopped duck chicharrones over top. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

787 calories; 608 mg sodium; 160 mg cholesterol; 73 grams fat; 2 grams carbohydrates; 28 grams protein; 0.1 gram fiber.

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Duck Dressing

1/2 cup lightly warmed duck demi-glace

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce

2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon soy sauce

2 teaspoons finely minced green onions, green part only

Combine demi-glace, hoisin sauce, vinegar, soy sauce and green onion in small work bowl and whisk until smooth.