Harvest Festival Duck at Outh Mead

To truly understand the full bredth of the spices available to the legendary brewers of Outh Mead you need to attend their harvest festival. The duck is simply delicious.

— Jasper Cameron, Leader of the Bronze Ravens.

As with most other recipies I shall not bore you with history, or pages upon pages of notes on my journey before reaching Outh Mead and learning this recipie. No, we shall jump right in, giving only a disclaimer that, as with most poultry recipies, this should work fairly well with turkey, chicken, or whatever you local bird of choice is.

Ingredients

- Meat

Duck (dead, de-feathered, dressed)

Brine

1 gallon Water (fresh spring water or boiled and filtered)

1 lb Salt

1 lb honey

1 handfull whole peppercorns

1 head of garlic

Spice Rub_{parts listed are by weight}

6 parts salt

4 parts paprika

4 parts crystalized honey

2 parts peppercorns

2 parts garlic

1 part rosemary leaves

1 part thyme leaves

1 part sage leaves

Glaze

2 gallons sweet fruit juice

2 quarts honey

1 head garlic (finely minced/ground)

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup cinnamon (ground)

1/4 cup peppercorns (ground)

1/2 cup lemon zest (finely ground)

Prepare the brine by heating the water to a boil and adding in the salt and honey. Add peppercorns, Chop head of garlic in half and add. (optional add the zest of 1 lemon) Allow brine to cool. AFTER BRINE HAS COOLED soak the duck in the brine overnight in a cool place. Wine or root cellars can work. In Outh Mead they seal up the barrel of brine and suspend it it the snow-fed creek.
While the duck is is the brine the rub can be prepared. Using a grinding wheel or a mortar and pestle grind and combine the listed ingredients. TO store larger batches, once combined, bake off additional moisture before storing in a cool dry place.
Once th4e duck is done brining (no more than 1 day) remove the duck from the brine, pat dry. Coat the duck with the spice rub. If desired, loosen the skin and also put a portion of the spice rub under the skin as well.
The glaze. This is where many of you will look at the required ingredients and say "that is a lot." This is because of how much of the festival cooking in Outh Mead is accomplished. It is done in a large smoking shed. If you are simply roasting the duck you can make far less of the glaze. Bring the juice to a simmer and combine the ingredients. Apply glaze as desired until duck is cooked through, collecting any drippings for use in gravies or sauces. If you are cookign like the dwarves, the finished glaze is stored in an open topped container. This container is then placed below the smoke rack that the duck will be on. While cooking, once per hour, when rotating the position of the ducks in the smoke shed, the ducks are dipped in the glaze and then placed in their new position. Smoking at the proper temperature should take 6 to 8 hours. The proper temperature for the smoke shed, according to the cooks at Outh Mead, should have the glaze in the containers steaming but not boiling.
Once the duck is cooked, let rest for half an hour, slice, and serve with desired sides. Mashed poatatoes or yams are recommended.
Want to make this in real life?

This is a slight variation on a recipe that I have used before. As stated above, if you are making this for yourself you can greatly reduce the amount of ingredients used for the glaze. I was trying to come up with a system that the dwarves would use and went with a "just dunk it" method. If you are brushing on the glaze divide the ammount by 16-32. The juice that I have used was a mixture of cherry and pineapple juice, however I will likely soon be trying a similar recipe with pomegranet. The smoker was set to 225F and cooked until the internal temperature was 160F.

Village Feast by Drunkenpanda951 with Midjourney

Want to make this in real life?

This is a slight variation on a recipe that I have used before. As stated above, if you are making this for yourself you can greatly reduce the amount of ingredients used for the glaze. I was trying to come up with a system that the dwarves would use and went with a "just dunk it" method. If you are brushing on the glaze divide the ammount by 16-32. The juice that I have used was a mixture of cherry and pineapple juice, however I will likely soon be trying a similar recipe with pomegranet. The smoker was set to 225F and cooked until the internal temperature was 160F.

Badge by Tillerz using MJ