3 tips for cooking Muscovy

If duck fans online could offer you one crucial piece of advice when it comes to cooking Muscovy, it would be don't roast it.

Most duck breeds carry a thick layer of fat on their bodies. There's so much, it often spatters the inside of ovens. Normally, it's a good idea to prick a duck's skin before roasting it, and then repeat it multiple times during cooking to allow the fat to run out. Chefs also recommend sitting a roast duck on a rack in a roasting dish or it ends up soaking in a big puddle of fat.

Not so the Muscovy. Their very lean meat can easily end up looking and tasting like dry cardboard when roasted.

Good cooking options are:

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sear boneless breast meat, then cook and serve rare or medium-rare;

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use legs and breast meat in a slowcooked casserole;

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use bones/other parts to make stock. In a 2009 NZ Lifestyle Block article, long-time Muscovy duck breeding champions Barry Lochead and Don McConchie recommended eating drakes aged over 16 weeks. By then, they no longer have pin feathers, little immature feather stubs that are difficult to remove. That makes plucking much easier, and the bird is large enough to feed 6-8 adults.