Hunt'nFish
WKR
Well I finally did a canning run of experimental Enchilada Duck,
and I must say it turned out fricking AWESOME! Couldn't be happier.
Meat flavor is just as I had hoped, good enough to eat straight from the jar.
Backstory:
In addition to big game hunting, I'm also an Officially Afflicted member of Duckaholics Anynomous I can't get enough waterfowling in during the winter. (I'm also a board member for the Oregon Waterfowl Festival and have been involved with it for several years now.) So naturally I have a lot of waterfowl use every year. I have developed a bit of a reputation as a duck chef, as I frequently serve up Duck Fajita's at the Festival. I laugh as I am no chef by any means. But I do have a passion for developing ways to make duck meat taste... well, like something other than duck. Over the years I have developed ways to take the duck out of duck and replace it with flavors like fajita, sweet curry, taco, breakfast sausage, etc.
My latest experiment was to can up duck in enchilada sauce.
My hope was to make duck meat taste like the Mexican shredded beef I so adore in burrito's & enchilada's. So just to keep things simple (another trait I'm known for), I simply canned it up in store bought enchilada sauce from a can (LaVictoria Enchilada Sauce "Mild Poco Picante").
Raw pack method:
Clean breast meat. remove feathers & shot from holes in meat, salt & soak meat over night, clean & rinse again. Trim off fat and cut breasts lengthwise in half so you can pack them tight in jar while still leaving meat in large chunks (for smaller ducks you can leave breasts whole). Clean & prep jars, lids & rings per canner instructions (boil bath). Slice up one onion scallion clove (1/4" thick), do the same for 2 garlic cloves (1/8" thick), add to bottom of jar, along with 1/4tsp salt. Pour in a little of the enchilada sauce and then start packing in the meat. Arrange to minimize voids and make sure you work out air bubbles, adding sauce as needed. Leave 1" head space above meat & sauce. Wipe jar rims clean w/ vinegar, position lids & tighten rings according to directions (snug but not tight).
Add jars to canner, cover w/ 1" water, put lid on, and can per time/psi appropriate for raw pack method at your altitude in your size jars. (for me using 3/4qt jars, at 300ft elev, that's 10psi for 90min once 10psi pressure is achieved.) Once cook time is complete, turn off heat and let canner naturally cool & de-pressurize, once at 0psi remove pressure weight & open lid and relocate jars to cooling rack. Start next run.
Serve:
After a week I couldn't stand it anymore I just had to try it, so I cracked a jar and pulled out a chunk and tasted it. AWESOME! So we had it for dinner. I poured contents from jar into a microwave safe bowl, shredded the meat by hand, left juice from jar in bowl, added a small can of green chili's and some diced onion, put it in the microwave and hit the "re-heat" button. While that was re-heating I shredded some lettuce, cheese & diced some roma tomato's & more onion for toppings. Fried up some corn tortilla's. I used a slotted spoon to pull hot meat from juice onto tortilla, drizzled a line of warm enchilada sauce on top of meat, added cheese, onion, lettuce & tomato's and proceeded to knock back 5 of the buggers before my belly said NO MORE! Needless to say they were a hit and so fast to prepare, way faster than frying up ground bear meat for taco's. (I think you could can up bear in enchilada sauce as well and get same scrumptious results.)
Anyway, give canned duck a try. I'm confident you'll be just as pleasantly surprised.
Hunt'nFish
and I must say it turned out fricking AWESOME! Couldn't be happier.
Meat flavor is just as I had hoped, good enough to eat straight from the jar.
Backstory:
In addition to big game hunting, I'm also an Officially Afflicted member of Duckaholics Anynomous I can't get enough waterfowling in during the winter. (I'm also a board member for the Oregon Waterfowl Festival and have been involved with it for several years now.) So naturally I have a lot of waterfowl use every year. I have developed a bit of a reputation as a duck chef, as I frequently serve up Duck Fajita's at the Festival. I laugh as I am no chef by any means. But I do have a passion for developing ways to make duck meat taste... well, like something other than duck. Over the years I have developed ways to take the duck out of duck and replace it with flavors like fajita, sweet curry, taco, breakfast sausage, etc.
My latest experiment was to can up duck in enchilada sauce.
My hope was to make duck meat taste like the Mexican shredded beef I so adore in burrito's & enchilada's. So just to keep things simple (another trait I'm known for), I simply canned it up in store bought enchilada sauce from a can (LaVictoria Enchilada Sauce "Mild Poco Picante").
Raw pack method:
Clean breast meat. remove feathers & shot from holes in meat, salt & soak meat over night, clean & rinse again. Trim off fat and cut breasts lengthwise in half so you can pack them tight in jar while still leaving meat in large chunks (for smaller ducks you can leave breasts whole). Clean & prep jars, lids & rings per canner instructions (boil bath). Slice up one onion scallion clove (1/4" thick), do the same for 2 garlic cloves (1/8" thick), add to bottom of jar, along with 1/4tsp salt. Pour in a little of the enchilada sauce and then start packing in the meat. Arrange to minimize voids and make sure you work out air bubbles, adding sauce as needed. Leave 1" head space above meat & sauce. Wipe jar rims clean w/ vinegar, position lids & tighten rings according to directions (snug but not tight).
Add jars to canner, cover w/ 1" water, put lid on, and can per time/psi appropriate for raw pack method at your altitude in your size jars. (for me using 3/4qt jars, at 300ft elev, that's 10psi for 90min once 10psi pressure is achieved.) Once cook time is complete, turn off heat and let canner naturally cool & de-pressurize, once at 0psi remove pressure weight & open lid and relocate jars to cooling rack. Start next run.
Serve:
After a week I couldn't stand it anymore I just had to try it, so I cracked a jar and pulled out a chunk and tasted it. AWESOME! So we had it for dinner. I poured contents from jar into a microwave safe bowl, shredded the meat by hand, left juice from jar in bowl, added a small can of green chili's and some diced onion, put it in the microwave and hit the "re-heat" button. While that was re-heating I shredded some lettuce, cheese & diced some roma tomato's & more onion for toppings. Fried up some corn tortilla's. I used a slotted spoon to pull hot meat from juice onto tortilla, drizzled a line of warm enchilada sauce on top of meat, added cheese, onion, lettuce & tomato's and proceeded to knock back 5 of the buggers before my belly said NO MORE! Needless to say they were a hit and so fast to prepare, way faster than frying up ground bear meat for taco's. (I think you could can up bear in enchilada sauce as well and get same scrumptious results.)
Anyway, give canned duck a try. I'm confident you'll be just as pleasantly surprised.
Hunt'nFish
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