How to Cook a Duck

My house-mate, Sarah, has a friend, Paskaria, that came over this past weekend to teach us how to cook duck. Due to a Oklahoma-worthy thunder and lighting storm in the morning, Paskaria wasn't able to arrive until 1:30pm, which is when we started the cooking lesson.

The first thing to do is meet your lunch.

Next, one must slaughter it. Thankfully our day-guard was on hand to handle that part.

Then you douse the fowl in boiling water. This allows you to easily pull all the feathers out. Paskaria's hands are very adept at pulling feathers out and quite adapted to handling boiling water. She showed us the callouses on her hands to testify to the fact that she is very used to this type of work.

Next the duck is charred over the coals until the fat starts running. That is when Paskaria quickly disassembled the duck. I was feeling quite confident that I could prepare duck until this step. She was so fast and sure of her work that I got lost and honestly quite concerned that she was going to cut herself. Have no fears, she didn't nick herself once.

After the duck was in pieces she put it in the pot to cook in its own fat.

We added some onions, tomatoes, and salt and just let the thing cook itself. 

Did you know that duck is extremely fatty?

After it had cooked for a bit Paskaria poured off some of the broth and a piece of meat for us. I was lucky enough to get the liver. Honestly, I don't like liver, I really don't. I've had it enough times in the past few years to know this for sure. But I ate it.

For all of you out there who have quite the refined palate and find duck liver patte exceptional - maybe you should move to Tanzania. Pure duck liver was the appetizer to my lunch on Saturday.

At about 3pm we finally sat down for lunch with the duck, some rice, a tomato sauce that Sarah made, and some greens. We had lunch under the banana trees in the yard.

It was a beautiful day, full of laughter and lessons. I am very impressed with Paskaria's skills and grateful that I got to learn how to cook duck from her.