Sunday, December 21, 2008

Cows Go Quack

So I just ate the best steak I’ve had in a while. Mmmm steak. Thick, juicy homegrown steak. Homegrown you say? Um… didn’t I read that you think you may only have an acre total land that’s not woods?

Yep. No cows for us. Not unless the Lord blesses us with a big piece of land someday. But we’ve found the next best thing. Muscovy Duck. Okay it’s a toss up between deer and muscovy. Deer is free and boy you get a lot of meat. But it is a bit gamey. AND well... we haven't gotten one this year. Our tiny piece of property doesn't make for the best hunting. Anyone in Middle TN have a large piece of land they want to let Clay hunt on? Please? But muscovies cost feed all year, but man, no gamey flavor and taste like beef. It’s almost crazy how much they taste like beef.

This is how I cooked these couple ducks. I take the breast off. You cook those just like a nice steak. I sear them in a pan and stick the pan in the oven for a handful of minutes. We like ours nice and rare. Then I parted out the rest of the duck. I put in a roasting pan and slow roast em at a low temp for a number of hours until tender. I picked all the meat off. I had Clay taste the meat and he thought it was beef roast. I swear it tastes just like roast. It’s unbelievable.

And oh duck fat. Muscovies have a lot of nice fat. I’m stoked to be able to put a big tub of it in the fridge. Good stuff. Right now I’m cooking all the bones down to make “beef” stock. I’m going to use that yummy shredded meat I picked off to make “beef” stew tomorrow.

Hmm I wonder how many ducks we’ll need to raise next year? Beef twice a month? Two ducks each time? So 50 ducks or so to raise for butcher next year? We have about 12 more to butcher in the next few weeks so that’s 6 meat meals + 6 soup meals.

Why didn't I take pictures of our beautiful steak and stew? Food is the one thing I forget to take pictures of. I want to start doing some cook alongs. We'll see if I can remember to do it before the food is totally cooked and half eaten?

Soon (and it will be soon as we'll be killing most of these guys in the next month!) I’ll show you my handsome flock of muscovies and talk about raising them. Had to talk about eating them while yummy flavor was still lingering in my mind.

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