Smoked Duck!

I hope everybody had a good week. Sunday was not only Easter, but it also was my birthday. We made my birthday dinner on Saturday, since Sunday was going to be busy with Easter. I had been wanting to try and smoke a duck for a while, so I figured my birthday was as good as a time as any.
        First, off we bought the duck that morning. I thought that the store had fresh duck, but they were frozen. As soon as we got home, I threw the duck still in its package in a bowl of cold water. Later, I let water run over it for a bit. It was still frozen in the middle when I prepped it several hours later. To prep it, I removed the neck and innards before cutting the breast bone and laying it flat. Then, I scored the skin to let some of the fat render out. I seasoned the whole thing with salt, pepper, Pampered Chef Bell Pepper Rub, and a little sesame oil. For the grill, I heated up some briquettes in my chimney starter and poured them over a small pile of unlit briquettes on each side of the grill. In the center between the two piles, I had a pan of water.  I then mixed up a special concoction to put in my smoker box. I mixed brown rice, a little brown sugar, 3 green tea bags using just the tea not the bags, a crunched up cinnamon stick, bay leaf, a few whole cloves, and 5 alder wood chips. I stirred everything together and put it in my smoker box over one set of coals. On the other set of coals, I put the bottom rind of a pineapple. When everything was starting to smoke, I put the duck skin side up over the water pan. I smoked it for over 2 hours at 300 till it reached 165 internal temp. I had a hard time getting an accurate read with my remote thermometer probe, so I checked it with my instant read thermometer when I thought it looked done and it was. We let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes.

Smoking mixture

Smoked duck

       To go with the duck, I grilled some broccoli. I chopped the broccoli and put it in foil. To season it, I added salt, pepper, and a little of the bell pepper rub. I put the packet on the propane side of the grill for 10 to 15 minutes while I was heating it up to grill pineapple. When the broccoli was done, I opened the packet and sprinkled a handful of grated cheese on it. I closed the packet back up and let the heat of everything melt the cheese.
      Like I said a minute ago, I also grilled some pineapple. I got the grilled pineapple recipe from a pin on Pinterest that Stacy pinned. It was super easy. I shook the pineapple in sugar and lemon zest and grilled till it was caramelized.

Grilled pineapple

   Stacy made brown rice and I also made sweet and sour sauce. The sweet and sour sauce recipe was also from Pinterest. I modified it only slightly. Instead of all the water that the recipe called for, I substituted pineapple juice and enough water to make 2/3 cup. I saved the juice from the pineapple when I cut it and squeezed some from the rind also.

Dinner upclose

Whole dinner

     The whole dinner was super delicious. The duck had a great flavor with a slight smokiness to it. Even Stacy liked it and she had been very skeptical of it before. The broccoli had a good flavor also. The sweet and sour sauce was amazing. It was better than store bought. We will definitely be making this sauce again. We love grilled pineapple at our house and it was no exception this time either. I mixed the leftover duck, rice, and sauce together and had it for dinner at work this week. I don't have a picture of the pie that Stacy made, but it was awesome. It was one of the best strawberry rhubarb pies that I've ever had.
      Sunday was Easter. In the morning we got up to find that the Easter bunny had visited. Isabella was super excited and had lots of fun. Isabella had fun Saturday night helping us decorate eggs. We had some of our colored eggs for breakfast. We went to Stacy's parents house and had a good Easter lunch.
   

Isabella's Easter basket

Eggs we decorated.

I hope everybody has a good rest of their week. By the time you get this post it will be the one year anniversary of JustPlaneBBQ. I will be doing a special post looking back on the year this weekend. Look forward to that and more. Happy grillin'.

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