Delicious uses for duck stock, please.

November 29, 2011 11:28 AM

What delicious soup (or dish) should I make with duck stock?

This Thanksgiving, I successfully roasted my first duck (yay!) and rendered out lots of gorgeous golden fat (double yay!). Yesterday I made stock from the carcass, and today I want to continue the trend by making a tasty, hearty wintery soup using some of it.

However, I found surprisingly few recipes online -- they all seem to either be recipes for making the stock, recipes that call for the entire duck in the soup, or not-so-precise comments like "just use it instead of chicken stock."

That's where the good people of the green come in. Give me your favorite soup or stew (or other dish) recipes using duck stock! I already have a great Chinese noodle soup recipe, so I'd prefer something more "western" -- like with white beans, or lentils, or ... mushrooms?

I did find this chowhound thread, which I'm considering although I have no idea what I'd do with the rest of a jar of red currant jelly, but wanted y'all's thoughts first. Thanks, all!

posted by alleycat01 to food & drink (14 answers total)

Use it as a base for risotto. If you have duck left over, make the delicious Portuguese dish arroz de pato ao forno. Or just use it as stock in any soup dish you like; lentil soup w/ duck stock sounds good.
posted by TheTingTangTong at 11:31 AM on November 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hah! We roasted our first duck this weekend as well.

I used the stock to braise some beef shanks from the back of the freezer (together with fennel and mushrooms) in the slow-cooker today. I'll let you know how it turned out.
posted by gauche at 11:54 AM on November 29, 2011

I think Ting's idea has a lot of merit. I used to eat sort of a hunter's creamed rice dish in the upper Midwest as a kid and it was a favorite. It was made with duck stock and chunks of duck with mushrooms, white rice, and wild rice. I am sure that it was rice baked with cream of mushroom soup (dude, it was Iowa in the 70's cut me some slack) but I bet that a risotto based on the same idea would be fantastic.
posted by Foam Pants at 12:32 PM on November 29, 2011

My first roast duck lived on as a duck soup with wild rice and brussels sprouts, and it was so good that I've adapted the recipe for chicken and turkey as well. Duck's still ideal, though.

You just use duck stock as a base, add in some wild rice and some leftover duck if you've got it. Then, when it's almost done, toss in some quartered brussels sprouts and continue to simmer until they're done.
posted by ernielundquist at 12:48 PM on November 29, 2011

If you have enough, how about a risotto? Epecially good if you have a few small pieces of duck meat left, and possibly some bits of cranberry.
posted by Hylas at 1:11 PM on November 29, 2011

In the unlikely event that you do not use up your duck stock right away with those delicious risotto ideas above, you can freeze it in ice cube trays and use the cubes later for flavoring meals all winter long.
posted by juniperesque at 1:24 PM on November 29, 2011

Duck fat cries out (in very mellow tones) for potatoes. Waxy firm varieties like Yukon Gold are good. Slice them thin (a food processors is helpful but not essential here), rinse, & let them dry (important) . Fry them over low-med flame in the duck fat with salt until golden. The French top them with parsely and garlic, but that's gilding the lily as far as I'm concerned.
posted by jcrcarter at 3:30 PM on November 29, 2011

I just had a vegetable soup made with duck stock for dinner. Here's what my wife says she did (may be approximate and this made enough for a couple of meals):

9 cups of duck stock
3 carrots, thinly sliced
2 onions, coarsely chopped
2 small bunches of Swiss chard, stems removed
8 oz. medium egg noodles
salt and pepper to taste

The egg noodles went in ten minutes before eating (the first time...).

She's thinks that's everything but she was not working from a recipe and it's possible something was missed. I can attest to the fact that it was delicious.
posted by maurice at 3:47 PM on November 29, 2011

What about something with diced potatoes, sliced carrots, a few sliced roasted garlic cloves and green onion? Maybe toss some dumplings in there toward the end of its cooking time? Or you could use marrow beans instead of the dumplings, which have a slightly bacon-y taste - they would probably pair very well with the duck stock.
posted by muirne81 at 3:48 PM on November 29, 2011

Anything that tastes good with duck tastes good with duck stock.

Fruit pairs well, although in a soup that's more challenging.

But butternut squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, wild/red/black/forbidden rice, white beans, and most vegetables go well. I would probably do a mock-cassoulet type thing with white beans, carrots, butternut squash, and pieces of left-over roast duck.

It's really hard to mess up duck stock. Anything will be delicious, really.
posted by guster4lovers at 3:48 PM on November 29, 2011

Whoops I read stock and saw fat. Nthing risotto. With wild mushrooms.
posted by jcrcarter at 4:01 PM on November 29, 2011

RISOTTO. CASSOULET. TINY ICE CUBES OF STOCK FOR LATER. Oh god, guys, I can't wait. Thanks so much for all the responses! I marked a few bests but all were very helpful.

gauche, let me know how the shanks are! Everything's gone so swimmingly thus far that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing this whole thing again in the next month or two (what, it's the holidays) so I'm sure I'll have more to use later ...

(And jcrcarter, thanks for the step-by-step on the potatoes. You better believe I will be gilding that lily.)
posted by alleycat01 at 4:53 PM on November 29, 2011

They were amazing! Memail me if you want the recipe.
posted by gauche at 7:03 PM on November 29, 2011

Agreeing with all of the suggestions upthread. In worth-it recipe substitutions, note that duck stock is also particularly magical with cool-weather greens like kale, chard, spinach, collards, etc.

Also, the easiest failsafe answer to "what to do with any flavor of leftover jam/jelly/preserves/fruit butter" is to use it as a substitute for the bananas in your favorite banana bread recipe. Also super-easy: you can also use it to sweeten plain yogurt, oatmeal, or granola. Or make jam-filled pancakes.
posted by desuetude at 7:47 PM on November 29, 2011