How to Bone a Duck Neck

rue Lanterne, Lyon 1e

Browsing through the French Saveur recipes, I noticed one that looked like it will be pretty cheap to do. Cous de canard farcis au risotto de roquette. Since cous de canard are about 70 centimes per kilo at the volailler, I knew immediately that this dish would fall in my budget. The first ingredient was:

4 cous de canard desosses (4 deboned duck necks.)

Since I am a complete moron and have absolutely no idea how to bone a duck neck, I went to eGullet to enquire with the experts.

I will prepare this recipe, because it looks like it might be a very good one.

From eGullet and cookbooks on my own shelf, I am getting lots of good info on how to cook a duck neck. I've learned that instead of actually removing the bones from the meat, what they mean by désosser is to remove the skin from the neck and use it as a casing for something braised or confit inside.

Around the corner from the Dubernet Foie gras shop next to La Bourse, Lyon 2eme

Actually the French traditionally stuff goose necks with various sausage stuffings and aromatics and slowly cook them immersed in duck fat. The tradition way to cook them is either to put them up for storage like cuisses de canard confit, or bake the resulting inner loaf in brioche to create a kind of pate. But the French are not the only ones to use poultry necks in cooking.

Various traditional Jewish recipes like helzel, where a chicken neck is stuffed with dumpling dough and added to chicken soup. It sounds so delicious!

There are recipes call for a starchy filler of some kind to absorb the flavor and are cooked in less fat, basting instead of immersing. These are sliced and served crispy skin and all. Time to get to work.

How to Bone a Duck Neck

Yummy cakes at Charcuterie Chorliet, rue Plat, Lyon 2eme

- Don't try and singe any remaining small down from the necks by using a candle. The wax creates black smoke that sticks to the skin and stains it. I lost a duck neck that way, used it as practice. I found that you can pluck the last remaining down with tweezers quite nicely. Do not parboil them. They will shrivel and shrink immediately.

- Begin at the big end. The inside is attached to the skin with filmy clear connective tissue that snips easily with scissors. Snip off any outer bones. On one side, there will be a cluster of fatty material and glands that are attached to the inside of the skin of the neck and are best snipped carefully between that and the skin.

- On the other side, the esophagus tube is attached to the inner muscular shaft and the skin. Clip only the skin side only, leaving the tube attached to the shaft, and fold the skin back all around, little by little, snipping carefully all around, until you have exposed enough of the inner shaft to hold it firmy.

- Take the inner part in one hand, the outer part in the other, and pull firmly but not too forcefully, and release the inner part from the skin. It turns inside out and you just pull it off.

- Turn it back to the right side out and pull off any down or quills that were missed by the volailler. Get them all. Choose carefully when you buy to avoid too much work afterwards. Voila. These are ready.