Brined, Smoked, Roasted, Crisped Duck With A Sauce Ala 90's!

Smoking gun, used for smoking food.  Don't get any bright ideas.

Hickory smoke is such a dandy smelling smoke to fill your kitchen, clothes, hair and Gunthorp Farms duck.  I used my AWESOME polyscience smoking gun for the first time last night.  I filled the chamber twice with hickory chips and allowed the duck to smoke for about ten minutes each time, four times total.

So backing up I brined this duck over night in a pickling spice mixture.  I make my pickling mixture with cinnamon, clove, allspice, juniper berries, mace, ginger, bay leaf, dill seed, mustard seed, fennel seed, coriander seed, black peppercorns, and red chili flakes.  I mixed a 1/2 cup of this mixture with a 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 cup of kosher salt, heated it in one gallon of water.  Once it was infused and come back to room temperature I placed it in a container, submerged the duck, added the rind of two oranges and covered, refrigerated for 24 hours.  

After 24 hours I rinsed the duck and patted it dry.  I stuffed it with a mire poix: carrot, celery, onion, with the oranges I peeled.  Then I placed it in a deep roasting pan with a lid so that I could smoke it.  After it was smoked I sprinkled kosher salt and pepper all over the skin and placed it in the oven at 200.  Had I not been going to a pierogi tasting I would have done perhaps more of a Chinese Crispy Duck method.  But I need to buy time... after two hours when I got home I turned the oven up to 250 to finish it off.  After about twenty minutes the duck reached an internal temp of 160.  I took it out, allowed it to rest for about twenty minutes and then I quartered it, brought canola oil up to a nice hot temp in a big skillet and seared the heck out of the skin until it was nice and golden brown.

And backing up a touch more, while I was finishing up the duck and allowing it to rest I made this sauce which I think is a real oldie.  I didn't add duck stock because my partner can't have duck so I am going to write it without the stock, which most people don't have at home anyways.  It's really good this way but if you do have duck stock, add a cup and just reduce it longer.

1/4 cup sugar

2 T Gran Mariner

1 cup orange juice

2 T sherry vinegar

2 T butter

1/2 t kosher salt

3 sprigs of thyme

In a small sauce pan, caramelize the sugar.  While caramelizing sugar, burn alcohol off Gran Mariner in a skillet and reduce.  This will happen quickly then set aside.  Once you've achieved that nice brown hue from the sugar, remove from heat and whisk in sherry vinegar, this will bubble and sizzle a lot so be cautious.  Return to heat to allow sugar to incorporate back in, then add Gran Mariner, orange juice, salt and thyme (add duck stock here if you have it).  Allow this to reduce for twenty minutes or more until the sauce coats the back of a spoon.  You can also mix 1 teaspoon of cornstarch and 1 teaspoon of water together then add to sauce as it's reducing to thicken if you need to rush it.  Once you turn off the heat whisk in the 2 tablespoons of cold butter.   That's it.  Last night I made this for my partner's aunt and cousin who are in town.  I'm trying to score points, obviously since they won't get to see one of my Underground Dinners.  This morning I made them potato pancakes with bacon, poached eggs, and hollandaise.  They think they are in heaven, kind of.

Before she goes in.