Duck Harvest

A break in the weather meant that yesterday I spent the day helping a friend with her duck processing.  We got 8 of the 25 finished.  She gets the ducks and livers; I get the feet, necks, and leaf fat.  Oh yea, and she raises sheep so I get a lamb  :)

Meat and livers total was 28.7# Not bad for 8 ducklings and 10 weeks!

Of course, the feet and necks went into a pot for stock...

I added celery, carrots, garlic, onions....and headed out to the greenhut and harvested a couple of Bay leaves and some Celery leaves to add.  It should be a tasty batch, and I tell ya my achy bones remind me to drink this stuff every day....

There was quite a bit of leaf fat considering the age of the ducks.  A good sign that they were happy critters...

First step of rendering is to cut it into slices...

and keep in on a low heat...melting the fat..

If the heat is too high, you may burn the cracklins, which would not make the fat taste good...

Once the pieces have rendered, carefully strain...I use a tea strainer for this since it's so fine.

I use the cracklins as dog treats for the littles...

Which leaves me with a half pint of pure duck fat....it's better than butter!

Once it sits in the fridge overnight it will become a creamy white color and solidify.

I'm dreaming of a lamb chop pan fried in duck fat....