Episode 99 - Duck Bacon

I have friends who don’t eat any pork or who stick to fish and fowl and avoid other meats. This leads to the occasional complaint that they like one of my recipes and want to make it, but that I add bacon because, well, everything is better than bacon. Form their perspective I have now “ruined it.” I have suggested that there are other options out there that can substitute for the bacon but will get the comment that there is no adequate substitute. I don’t agree and I am going to prove them wrong, with duck bacon. I like to use duck because the nice fat cap is the closest thing to the fattiness of pork belly. Turkey bacon, which has appeared on a lot of menus as a healthy option, is not a good substitute because it is too lean and tasteless.
I make it exactly the same way that I make pork bacon - cured and smoked. I used the same cure and the same smoking process.
The cure for two one pound duck breasts
• 13 grams salt
• 3 grams cure #1 (Prague cure #1, pink salt #1), a curing agent
• 5 grams black pepper
• 5 grams dark brown sugar
• 3 grams crushed juniper berries
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1 crumbled bay leaf
• some grated nutmeg
• 2 chopped thyme sprigs
Mix this up and rub half on each breast. Put the breasts in a plastic bag, putting any excess cure in the bag, and place it in the fridge for about about five days, turning it daily to redistribute cure. After about 5 days rinse them off, pat them dry, wrap them in cheesecloth, and dry them in fridge for a couple more days.
Set up your smoker for 200-225 degrees. Soak some applewood chips for about 30 minutes, drain, and add to the smoker. You want to smoke using indirect heat, so depending on your smoker you may need to put in a deflector so that the duck is not directly above the heat source. You are aiming for an inside temperature of about 160 degrees.
Once done and cooled, it can be sliced and cooked just like bacon. The only thing is you are going to need just a little bit of oil because there is not quite enough fat on the duck. Cook at medium heat until the fat cap is rendered and the bacon crisps up, and as you will hear from Official Taster Donna it is a great substitute for pork bacon and you can’t even tell it is duck. So, dig out those bacon-enhanced recipes and enjoy!