Quarantine Cooking: Smoked Duck

Photo by B. Jones. Smoking duck, 4 May 2020.

As part of my ongoing series to capture some of our quarantine cooking during this COVID-19 shelter-in-place experience, this is a recap of Monday's smoked duck. I followed a variation of a recipe shared by our friends Katie and Mike. We found whole duck at our local Costco. After thawing out the duck, I removed the flap of fat near the neck, and used a fork to poke marks in the skin. The initial seasoning sauce is below:
- 2 Tablespoons local honey
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 small onion, quartered
- 2 small mandarin oranges, quartered (place onion and oranges inside the duck, after you remove the neck and giblets)

I put the initial seasoning on the duck & then put in a gallon ziplock bag inside the fridge for a few hours. The instructions said to do this overnight, but because I forgot to start this process on Sunday, two hours was enough for me.

I set the Traeger at 300. While the grill was coming to temperature, I made the glaze.
- 1 Tablespoon local honey
- 1 Tablespoon molasses
- 2 Tablespoons orange juice
- 1 Tablespoon balsamic (I used a cherry-orange balsamic blend)
- zest of orange

After taking the duck out of the fridge, I put it in a roasting pan & covered both sides with the glaze. With the grill now at 300, I put the roasting pan on the grill. At the 2 hour mark, I put on some more glaze. At the 3 hour mark, I bumped the temperature up to 325. This put a nice finish on the duck, as you can see below.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Smoked Duck. 4 May 2020.

We're planning to turn the leftovers into duck fried rice this week.