One of my jobs at the restaurant is to contribute ideas which, after some tinkering, could end up as viable, tasty dishes on the tapas menu. One day, I was watching head chef prepping duck legs for service, trimming off the excess skin and fat, when it occurred to me: duck scratchings! Just like pork scratchings, except more ducky! Crisp, puffy duck skins, roasted in the oven, dusted with salt and served as a tapa with beer - how unique! No one else in the world could possibly have come up with such an awesome idea!
68,203 results on Google proved me wrong.
Just to see what I should be doing, I popped into the British food section of my local supermarket, which happens to stock pork scratchings - the template for my idea. I bought two different brands (one's actually made in New Zealand!), and tipped them out to see how they looked and tasted.
While both were pleasantly porky and salty, the British-made product was quite hard, and the NZ-made scratchings crunchy - crunch is what I was after, and I figured cooking my duck skins at a moderate heat for about half an hour should do it.
Turn your oven on to 180c, and pop a tray inside to warm up. Using a good sharp knife, cut your duck skin into finger-width-and-length strips.
Place your duck skins onto the heated tray (line it with baking paper; I forgot), sprinkle generously with maldon or sea salt, then place in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp. They will shrink in size quite considerably, so don't be alarmed. You'll also end up with a surprising amount of rendered duck fat.
Pass the fat through some muslin (to keep out debris) and into a container. Cool it down, cover and pop in the fridge; use it later when roasting spuds to make them more flavoursome.
Place the scratchings on a paper towel to drain. Allow to cool, during which time they'll harden.
7 comments:
I do it completely the other way around. I aim to render the fat, and the scratchings are a delicious by-product. Put them in a pan and heat gently on top of the stove, or in a deep dish in the oven, and cook until ALL the fat is rendered. Use the fat to confit the duck legs. Put the scratchings in the microwave on top of a paper towel and nuke them carefully until what fat is left melts out and soaks into the paper towel. Then cool, salt, and eat. Delicious.
Nigel! I heard the news about the earthquake in Hawke's Bay and I thought of you. How's everything? Take care.
Bronwyn - We confit the duck legs in its own fat, too. Some of the trimmings were kept aside for my experiment.
Arfi - All good here, Arfi! No one around here noticed a thing. I bet baby's putting on weight!
I had to settle for the next ducky thing we had at home... duck rillette. Still good, but I still feel like trying duck scratchings!
And hey, before I saw that line about the Google results, I thought duck scratchings were your invention too ;-) Never heard of such a thing!
Ha! Some serious wishful thinking on my part, Mel :)
I don't do duck. All I can think of is "quack quack quack".
Kia ora Nigel,
They look tasty though! A cold lager beside them would be a real treat. Glad to read the earth quake treated you well. We felt it here pretty nicely in Palmy.
Cheers,
Robb
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