Duck Prosciutto

What, just because we keep kosher doesn’t mean we can’t experiment with charcuterie!

Of course, pig is out of the question, but duck is super fatty, too, so I decided to experiment with it. Turns out, even people who don’t keep kosher try making prosciutto out of duck – I found a bunch of recipes and blog posts about it online. That sealed the deal, I knew I had to try it!

I bought two duck breasts from Pomegranate and cured them each a bit differently. Here‘s the first way I did it – it was actually one of the first hits on Google, but I did a lot of research before settling on it. It seemed pretty simple, had a pretty picture, and the instrulctions were written out well. Don’t forget that you’ll really need to plan ahead to do this – it takes 24 hours in the salt cure, then two weeks hanging to dry.

My duck was actually a little less fatty than the one from that website, but it still worked out pretty well. I would try it again with other spices. Just using black pepper was a little boring (more on spices in the next post).

Adapted from MyRecipes – Since I used only one breast, I halved the recipe:

Special tools:

• Cheesecloth

Ingredients:

• 2 cups kosher salt, divided
• 1 boneless duck breast half (about 8 ounces)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Pour 3/4 cup of salt into a glass baking dish.

2. Place duck on top of the salt skin side up.

3. Cover with remaining salt.

4. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

5. Remove duck from salt and discard salt.

6. Rinse duck under cold water and dry well.

7. Sprinkle with pepper.

8. Place duck in double layer of cheese cloth and tie the top.

9. Hang duck in refrigerator for two weeks.

10. Cut into very thin slices and serve!

This will keep in the fridge for about 5 days in an air tight container.