How to Create a Flavorful Foraged Duck Dish Using Black Trumpets, Chanterelles, and Ramps

Brining the duck.

Making the stuffing.

Testing the truss.

Stuffing the cavity.

Drying the duck skin out.

Making the basting liquid.

Basting the duck.

Preparing the duck for the oven.

Flipping the duck.

Finished roast duck.

Duck is one of my favorite foods and a roast duck is usually something I make once a season. As this weekend was Valentine's Day, I felt that a nice treat was warranted.

So earlier in the week, I headed to one of my favorite places in the area--G Mart, the Chinese grocery store. I briefly lived in Beijing and one of my favorite things about it was the food. The restaurants, night markets and grocery stores were always a culinary adventure full of new delights, strange ingredients and tantalizing smells. G Mart, takes me back to this time in my life and I always enjoy my trips there.

In addition to the duck, I also bought some Chinese eggplant, lotus root, lychee and a plethora of mushrooms. These would later become some of the side dishes I planned serving with the duck.

Upon returning from the grocery store and putting away the ingredients, I began to thaw the duck. They did have fresh ducks at the store but they were the same price as the frozen ones and significantly smaller. If you can find a nice plump fresh duck, I would encourage you to get that instead of the frozen one.

Another reason I had decided to make the duck was that I had recently finished all the fermented trumpets in a 32oz jar and I wanted to use the brine for meat. Trumpets have a sweet and fruity aroma to them which I thought would lend themselves to flavoring the duck very well.

The duck finally finished thawing and I placed the whole duck, giblets and all in a large bowl. Covered it with the brine of the black trumpets and some of the brine from a jar of fermented chanterelles that was half empty of mushrooms but still full of brine. I also took a generous 1/2 cup of fermented ramps and spread them over the top of the duck. The whole bowl was then covered and left to ferment for a couple days.

This would not only flavor the meat with the mushrooms and wild onions but also tenderize it and make it easier to digest. This last reason is due to the probiotics still living in the brine which would begin to feed on the duck, puncturing holes in the cells of the meat and making it easier for our digestive systems to extract the goodness inside.

The day the duck was to be cooked, I removed the bird from the brine and let it drain so that the remaining brine could drip off. I then removed the giblets from the cavity and started to make the stuffing.

Deciding on a medley of fruits for the stuffing, I added clementines, kousa berry jam(dogwood berries), lychee and cherries to a bowl. I then seasoned it with a little bit of dried spicebush berry and filled the cavity.

Then I put the duck on a rack and placed it in front of a large fan. This step forces the skin to dry out a little and this makes it crispier in the oven. After a few hours of drying. I started to baste the duck with some maple syrup, kousa berry jam, sriracha, hoisin sauce, liquid from the cherry jar, powdered pomelo rind, and thick soy sauce.

This liquid was basted over the outside of the duck throughout the day, so that by the time the duck went into the oven, the skin was golden brown and slightly sticky.

The duck was cooked for 30 minutes on each side at 425 F and came out beautifully caramelized and dripping with deliciousness. I let it rest for 15 minutes and then carved it.

Once carved and plated I poured over a little bit of thin gravy. This was made from the neck, and giblets of the duck; I cooked them over a low flame all day and reduced the liquid to a scant 1/4c.

The meat was so succulent, moist and bursting with flavor. This recipe was a huge success and I was thrilled to have finally been able to bring this dream to life!

You can watch me make this here!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Duck, 4-5 lbs

Enough brine to cover the duck( I used a mixture of black trumpet and chanterelle brine)

1/4c fermented ramps

-Stuffing;

2 clementines

30g Pickled Ginger

150g Kousa Berry Jam

150g Dark Cherries,

2 Dried Spicebush berries

60g Pitch pine cones,

1 Lychee

-Basting Liquid,

¼ c Maple Syrup

1T Sriracha

2 T Hoisin Sauce

½ cCherry liquid

1 generous T of Wineberry Jam

1 generous t ofKousa Berry Jam

Pinch of Dried Pomelo Rind

1/2 t Thick soy Sauce

Method:

1. Brine the duck for 2 days in the fermenting liquid and the fermented ramps.

2. Removed duck from brine

3. Remove neck and giblets from the duck cavity

4. Place neck and giblets in a small pot with some water and simmer all day, adding more water as necessary.

5. Prepare Duck stuffing

   1. Separate clementine segments and chop in half

   2. Chop pickled ginger

   3. pop spicebush berries

   4. Chop the lychee

   5. Add above and remaining ingredients to a bowl and mix well.

6. Fill Duck cavity with stuffing.

7. Truss bird so it can be flipped during roasting

8. Leave the bird in front of a fan for several hours to dry out the skin.

9. Prepare the basting liquid.

10. Baste the duck thinly and frequently while in front of the fan until there is no liquid left and the duck is well coated. (be sure to baste both sides).

11. Roast duck at 425F for 30 mins on each side, using the sling to rotate it without tearing the skin.

12. Let rest for 15 minutes in a warm space.

13. Carve.

14. Drizzle gravy over the meat and enjoy!