What is the best way to pluck a duck?!
Answers: No rude answers please!!!!!!!!!!!
To pluck any bird, you need to heat a container of water until it reaches the boiling point. Then dunk the bird a few times, pull it from the water and allow it to cool to the touch and start pulling feathers. Make sure you pull the feathers the direction they grow or you’ll tear the skin. While it sounds easy, it’s a real chore, as I’ve found over the years. Then you can use a burning rolled up newspaper, a burner on your stove, or a brand from your campfire to singe the small feathers from the bird.
Good luck :)
Cooking a duck starts with getting it out of its suit of feathers and down. Some hunters skin their birds--some even breast them (take only the breast meat). But if one expects to put his feet under a table that is graced by well-cooked ducks, he must start by picking his birds (that means leaving the skin intact).
Actually, I do a lot of rubbing when picking (cleaning) ducks. It is more a matter of rubbing off the feathers with the outside surface and heel of the thumb while you are holding the bird in the palm of the free hand. You pick with index finger and thumb, but you rub off a lot of feathers and down in the process.
To avoid being up to my eyeballs in duck feathers, I line a clean trash can (a big one) with a plastic trash bag. This makes it possible to "clean" birds in the kitchen (if you tell your wife I suggested such a gross maneuver, I will steadfastly deny it).
Start by pulling out the big feathers of the wings and tail. Then (if you are right-handed) hold the bird belly up in the left hand. Start at the point where the neck joins the breast and just sorta pick-rub the feathers and down off the breast and belly all the way to the tail. Then work on the sides and back, always going fore to aft. If the skin breaks a few places, pick gingerly around the breaks in order to keep the skin intact. The skin is what makes your duck moist after being cooked.
There will be little pocket (wing pits, if you please) where the down is tough to remove. Rub it off with your thumb. It's got to go. Same around the legs.
When you get to the wings, pick and pinch off the feathers of the first joint, but discard the rest of the wings.
Pruning shears are handy for cutting through bones of wings, legs and the neck.
Once the feathers and down are removed, at the kitchen sink, or some other area that offers running water, make a crosswise cut just behind the breast. This will expose the gizzard, which should be saved. Then make a cut back to the tail and remove the little heart-shaped tail with a cross cut at the point where it joins the body.
Now you are ready to pull out the other organs, entrails, crop and larynx, and wash out the interior of the bird with cold, running water.
Dip the carcass in melted wax or paraffin. let cool just a bit, and peel it off. The feathers and most importantly, the pinfeathers should all pull off with the wax.
Dunk it in some boiling hot water, I suggest wearing gloves for this so as you don't burn your hands. Then pull out the feathers, it stinks but the feathers tend to come away from the bird easier.
Cut off the heads and feet. Crack the bones of the wings at what would be the shoulders on a person and take the wings off that way. Cut through the skin up the breast side and pull it back, feathers and all, then give it a good rinse. Pull out the innards and rinse it again.
pour boil hot water on the duck ( already slaughtered), you will find it helps to pluck the feathers