Smoked 'n Glazed Hawaiian Citrus Duck
Andrew Gardner for SPLIT REED
Presented by Traeger Grills
#pluckducks
This is a Hawaiian-influenced recipe that originally called for guava jelly, but we went with crushed pineapple because you can buy it anywhere and it's a damn good substitute. If you want, throw in another type of fruit or fruit product instead, I’m sure it’ll be great. You just need something with some acidic brightness and some sugar. The rice vinegar, ginger, and hot honey mustard give it an extra twang. And with a little smoke from your Traeger, this is going to be a lights-out dish to serve anytime!
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Ingredients:
1 8oz can crushed pineapple (substitutes: guava, apricot, or pineapple preserves/jelly (start with a couple of tablespoons and adjust), any fresh acidic fruit (kiwi, pineapple, mango, that sorta thing) will do the job.
Soy Sauce - 4 tbsp
Rice Vinegar (unseasoned)
Hot Honey Mustard or Dijon Mustard, 1.5-2 tbsp
Sriracha, ½ tbsp or more
Fresh ginger, one thumb-sized knob
Fresh garlic, 1 good sized clove, or a couple of smaller ones
Directions:
Duck, and waterfowl in general, is insanely good when paired with certain types of fruit and citrus. It's the combination of the rich meat and salty skin that is actually begging for something sweet and tangy and edgy to kick it up a notch. If you have a sense of ingredients and know-how to properly handle your birds you can skip this next part. I’m just going to explain why the recipe works and tell you about my process.
I began by deconstructing a widgeon, then brining it for 24 hours. Really do your best to brine your waterfowl, especially if you have any concerns about potential ‘gamey' flavors. The only time you're going to have 'gamey' ducks is if you don't brine them, you overcook them, they got shot up beyond the hope of salvation, or you really screwed things up in the field and the meat began to spoil. Otherwise, they should all taste pretty damn good. And I'm talking puddle ducks here, we can cover spoonies and divers another time.
I took an extra step on this recipe that isn't required but will give you crispier skin. I seasoned the bird with the Traeger Chicken Seasoning 24 hours ahead of time and let it rest in the fridge, uncovered, on a rack, so any moisture would fall away and not pool up around the meat. Plus we like airflow. If you didn’t plan ahead, just season and let rest on the counter for 45+ minutes as it comes up to room temp before you put it on the grill. After the bird is seasoned, you can assemble the glaze.
Take all the ingredients and put them in a food processor, blend 'em up, pour them in a saucepan, bring them to a simmer, reduce the heat and let it cook for 5 minutes before pulling it off (make sure the bottom doesn’t burn). All you want here is for the flavors to marry together a bit and the sugars to begin to caramelize.
Your Traeger should be around 250 degrees. Feel free to kick up the smoke setting during this initial cooking stage. I didn't but I'm sure it would be good. When your bird reaches room temperature, bring it out to the grill and apply glaze to both sides. First, the skin side then flip it and glaze the meat side. You're going to cook it skin-side down using the reverse sear method. When your duck reaches 120 degrees, take it off the grill and let it rest. Raise the temp as high as your grill goes.
Once it is ripping hot, put the duck back on the skin side down and let it cook until it hits NO HIGHER THAN 130 DEGREES. This is critical. It's going to come up AT LEAST 5 degrees (probably 7-8) and you're going to be pushing past medium-rare which is approaching the danger zone of 'gamey', grey, livery duck that people make and then bitch about how duck doesn't taste good. You don't need to associate with that type of thinking. It's bad for your taste buds. Try pulling the duck off at 127-128 if you really want it perfect.
And just to triple confirm, we are letting the duck cook skin side down the entire time. The ambient heat in the Traeger is more than enough to cook the meat thoroughly and the skin insulates the meat so the bottom won't overcook.
Once you've pulled the duck off the grill (before it gets past 130), let it rest for at least 10 minutes before you slice into it. I'd normally say let it rest longer but because we let it rest during the cooking process we're a step ahead. If you have a torch, do yourself the ultimate favor and fire that skin until the fat starts bubbling and you get those crispy dark edges. That's the sugar caramelizing which is a great thing. You don't want to burn the hell out of it but some charred edges are money. Now slice it up and serve it with noodles as we did, rice, alongside a veggie stir fry, or if you really want to stick with the Hawaiian theme make yourself a little Mac salad with a couple of scoops of white rice on the side.
Enjoy!
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