October 2022 - 13

WILD KITCHEN
Duck bacon
Duck bacon is a thing and a thing you might
want to have in your life. It's easy to make and
tastes wonderful. Duck bacon is made with
cured and smoked duck breast.
Use very fat duck breasts from farmed or
wild ducks. Pretty much any farmed duck breast
will work, but I would try to get moulard duck
breasts. In a perfect world with wild ducks,
mallards, pintail (in photo), gadwall, canvasbacks
and redheads work. For smaller bacon
use wigeon or wood ducks.
Duck bacon requires cure No. 1, which has
sodium nitrate. This procedure is easy. Measure
the weight of the meat, then weigh out 2 to 2.5
percent salt by weight and 0.25 percent cure
No. 1 by weight. Massage this into the meat,
vacuum seal and put in the fridge for one week
to cure. Take it out, rise briefly and pat dry then
smoke as long as you can stand it. Cold smoking
is the way to go here.
If you want to try without nitrate, cure with
2.5 percent salt by weight then hot smoke at
about 180 degrees for about 3 hours.
Once you have your duck bacon, slice it
thinly skin-side down. You can eat it cooked
or uncooked.
(Photo by Holly A. Heyser)
Ingredients
2 duck breasts
Salt
Curing salt
Preparation
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 4 hours
Curing time: 5 days
Serves 4 people
1. Weigh each duck breast in grams.
Weigh out 2 to 2.5 percent of that
weight in salt. Weigh out 0.25 percent
of the breast's weight in curing
salt No. 1. Massage that into the
meat. Repeat for the next breast and
Hank Shaw hunts
and fishes across
the country, has
penned multiple wild
game cookbooks and
keeps an awardwinning
food blog
at honest-food.
net. His cookbooks
are available at the
Game and Fish Store.
so on if you are doing many.
2. Vacuum seal the breasts with any
excess salt. Set them in the fridge
for at least 3 days and up to 10. This
cure will not make them too salty. I
generally go for five days.
3. Rinse and pat dry. Cold smoke the
breasts for at least 8 hours, and you
can repeat this process every day for
several days if you want a very smoky
product. Slice with the skin-side
down. Use like regular bacon.
Wyoming Wildlife | 13

https://honest-food.net

October 2022

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