At last! A duck recipe for my dear readers. As I am sure you can tell by all of my duck hunting posts, I have quite a few birds in my freezer and a handful of delicious recipes I have been dying to share. I have made several dishes this winter, but am naturally a bit scatterbrained so of course I forgot to take pictures or write down my directions. I promise I will be better about that in 2013!

Ducks can be a bit finicky to cook- if you don’t do it just right, you can wind up with a tough, rubbery, tasteless bird, and no one wants to eat that! While I do love a good seared duck breast, the crock pot is a great way to slow cook the meat until it is tender, without a lot of hands-on time in the kitchen. Between the bbq’d duck and the tangy horseradish sauce, this recipe was a real success. My guinea pig tasters all cleaned their plates, and I know you will too!

INGREDIENTS:

Duck BBQ:

4 duck breasts, fileted off the bone (yield 8 filets)
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 bottle of your favorite bbq sauce (I used a smokey-sweet version from Trader Joe’s)
1/2 cup of red wine
1/3 cup of water

Horseradish Sauce:

1-2 tbsp prepared horseradish (you can always add more if you like a little more kick)
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonaise
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 Sourdough bread loaf, sliced

STEPS:

1. Start by getting your duck breasts off the bone. This is pretty easy to do, but even easier if you have bought them at the grocery store. Just kidding. I was using mallards and teal, but whatever you have will work since they will be cooked for a lllllong time. Real long. Like 10 hours. I also only ended up with 7 filets from the 4 birds, as my dad I made a direct hit on one and the second side was too shot up to use.

2. In the bottom of your crock pot, put a layer of the chopped onions down, along with the butter. Then layer the ducks on top of the onions, and sprinkle the garlic on top of the ducks. I had one red onion and one sweet onion on hand, so I used the red onion for the base layer.

3. Now is the time to douse those ducks with the liquids. Pour in the bbq sauce, red wine, Worcestershire, and water, making sure all of the duck is covered. Then give it a quick little stir.

4. Set the crock pot to low, put that lid on, and walk away! I got everything in the pot around 8:30 in the morning, and didn’t touch it again until 4:30 that afternoon. What a delightful sight to come home to. Am I right? Pardon the sauce up the sides… I had a little spillage when I was clumsily transporting everything. Oops…

5. Almost sandwich-making time! To make the horseradish sauce, just combine all of the ingredients with a fork until they are blended. You may need to mess around with the quantities to get the taste to your liking, but it should ultimately look like this:

I also grilled up that sweet onion I mentioned before, just to have a little something extra on top of the meat in the sandwiches. Cook them low and slow until they are super soft. I even added another dash of Worcestershire. Why? Because it was there, and I like it.

6. I used a sourdough loaf for the sandwich bread. It is nice and crusty on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside- perfect for absorbing all the juices in the bbq! Once you have sliced your bread, drizzle it with a little bit of olive oil, and stick it under the broiler until it is toasted. Then slather it with the horseradish sauce- as much or as little as you like!

7. Now, at long last, pile that bread high with the duck bbq. I am telling you, don’t skimp! You will want to have a ton of it on there. Then add a few more onions for some extra flavor, top it with the second piece of bread, and take the biggest bite you can! Oh man, what a treat.

How good does that look?! I am telling you, you won’t soon forget how much you love this recipe. I know I will be making it again before too long! Let me know how you like it. Enjoy!