It was a wild night

Hunting is a popular sport in our farm area - not just for sport but to provide food for the table.  

I like quail and pheasant, but I really love duck. We cook it a lot in Sydney - the farm raised variety that is.  The dark meat and strong flavour of wild duck can be a bit of a turn off for me, but we were keen to try some techniques that remove the blood and calm down the wild flavour.

(Vegetarians may wish to stop reading now).

Our neighbours and farmers, the B's provided the mallard duck and pheasant for the feast and joined us for dinner. 

We planned to cook these in the WFO (wood fired oven)

Research on line suggested brining the meat before grilling or roasting, or alternatively braising  in a slow oven without brining.  We decided to try the two versions.

For the braise, we cut up 2 pheasants, put them in our le Creuset oven dish 

Added the juice of two oranges, some white wine, 2 star anise, 2 bay leaves and half a large onion diced and put it in a low oven indoors to cook for six hours.

We put the two pheasant and the other ducks into the brine - water, salt and brown sugar, and soaked for several hours, before rinsing and patting dry.

M reported that a lot of blood came out!

We wrapped the pheasant in bacon, and rubbed oil and salt and pepper into the ducks.

These were then roasted on a rack in the WFO, breast side up.

The meat of the pheasant was white and moist, the duck had great flavour. 

The braised duck melted in the mouth and the juices were delicious.

We had made plenty of side dishes - just in case!

Green beans, braised with bacon and onion, red cabbage and apple

BB's broccoli salad -with nuts and dried fruit

And a huge platter of potatoes roasted in duck fat.

Even though it is still summer here and this was more like a Fall/Autumn meal - it was a mild enough night to sit outside and the enjoy this delicious meal with our neighbours.

This was our version of  Duck Dynasty.