Duck Fat Musings

With all the rage in using duck fat to cook, one would think you could find it rather easily. Stuttgart, Arkansas, is supposed to be a duck hunting mecca, with all the flooded rice fields. Unfortunately, the only way to get it in this area is to either order off of Amazon.com, have someone kill a duck for you (or do it yourself), or purchase a whole duck at the butcher shop - I know Ivan's and Richard's both carry it.

If you order it off Amazon.com, you can get a nice 7 lb. container of the stuff for under 10 dollars. BUT, you have to spend over 40 dollars for it to be shipped overnight.

If you have a freshly killed duck, you have to deal with those lovely down feathers and plucking is not my forte.

So, the least painful way to get duck fat in Northwest Arkansas is to purchase a whole frozen duck (for around $20.00), let it thaw, remove the skin and cook the skin over low heat for a long time to render the fat. Whew!

The reward - you only will make about 1 to 1.5 cups of fat in this method, but pan frying potatoes in the fat makes them taste somewhat earthy, and almost as rich as if you were eating meat. And, you can keep it in the refrigerator for at least 6 months.