Nha means House

Be warned there is a lot of graphic pictures on this posting, but it is very educational, especially about breaking down a duck, using the French technique.

Yesterday I spent 16 hours with the Herbfarm staff and owner, Ron Zimmerman, learning about ducks and how to humanely slaughter and break the ducks down on Shaw Island.  It truly was an unique learning and memorable experience that I will never forget. Our instructor that day was Neal Foley, aka PodChef.  He was so knowledgeable and gave a thorough guide on raising ducks and butchering them.  Below is a picture of the PodChef in his kitchen with a cup of coffee giving us some background and history of the Rouen Ducks.  They are known as the civilized ducks and are flightless because they usually gain too much weight too fast for their wings to develop and accommodate them in flight.

Afterwards the Podchef took us outside to the area where he was holding the ducks in their individual cages.

He said he went out early that morning to catch all the ducks and put them in the cages to calm them down before we actually did anything to them.  An interesting fact he told us was that meat usually last much longer and cure better when the animal is not stressed out.  Also one whole month before this day, he has been “fattening” up the ducks with a diet of cracked corn that he usually soaks in milk for 24 hours before he feeds them. Before that month he would give them whole grains and let them forage for fresh greens and bugs in the field.

The most humane way in killing a duck is with a killing cone and below is a picture of it.  This technique calms the bird down and restrain them so they are not flapping around too much.  The other metal contraption is from the UK where it snap off the neck of the bird, but with that method you actually have to hold the bird throughout the whole process until the bird stops moving.

Back to the cone, you basically put the duck head down first and the head comes out of the small end.  With this method it makes the blood rushes to the bird’s head and calms the duck down further.  Then you hold on to the beck and then with a knife cut into its two arteries in the throat area. 

 

The Herbfarm actually asked to keep the blood to use in sauces, thus you see him holding a container to catch the blood.  It’s a technique where you use the blood to thicken up wine sauces.

Next you will want to need a pot of hot water enough to put the entire bird in to scald it, which will loosen the feather so that it will be easier to pluck the feathers.  Next you will want to add a drop or two of liquid dish water, Podchef used Kirkland’s Environmentally Friendly Liquid Dish Soap.You will want to get the temperature to 160, if you were scalding a chicken the temperature would be at 140. Once you get it to the right temperature you will want to dip the bird up and down and get the entire bird wet, this will take about 10 to 15 seconds.

Then you will want to hook the legs up and then start plucking away!  You will want to start with the wings and the tail and then move inward.

The next step was the waxing of the bird, this process helps to remove all those darn pin feathers that you see in the above picture.  The below pic is a pot of cheese wax that is melting down so we can coat the bird with.

We first dip the birds in the pot of wax and then with a brush went over any area that the wax dip could not reach.  We waited for a couple of minutes for the wax to harden and then proceed to remove it.  This process really helped to remove a good majority of the pin feathers that was not removed during the plucking phase.  Here are some shots of the staff plucking the birds.

Here is Chris, sous-chef, with his bird,

Ron in his yellow overall documenting the day with his camera

More staff pictures

The following pictures are very graphic and shows a lot of different parts of the duck, including innards and blood.

Breaking down the Bird

This picture shows the duck totally broken down to each individual parts, carcass, organs and head.

With the French technique, you start at the bottom of the duck by cutting a slit where the ribcage ends and then sliding your fingers and most of your hand in and slowly start separating the connecting tissues and then you start pulling very gently but with strength to get all the innards out.

You will want to be extremely carefully you do not tear any intestines or rupture any of the organs.  Then before removing all the organs you will want to carefully cut out the poop vent area and remove the tail.  You will also notice that the duck butt will have two large capsule-like yellow fatty bumps, you can also remove that too.  This is their oil gland that the duck will uses with their beck to manipulate the oil around their feathers to “oiled” it so their feathers will be waterproof.

After you have completely empty all the organs out and separate the heart, gizzard, and kidneys. You will need some clippers and cut the neck, the wing tips and the feet off.  After that you will want to make a cut down the back and then start separating the meat from the bone with your knife.

And there you have it, a broken down duck.  Overall it was a very interesting process.

Here are some more staff pics with Lisa Nakamura, the Chef de Cuisine, and Ron Zimmerman breaking down some ducks

We ended up vacuuming sealing with the MultiVac that the staff had brought along and then we packed them in a ice chest filled with lots of ice to bring home with us. 

We ended up with 26 Rouen Ducks, almost a 100lb of meat, that day.  I think the hardest part beside killing the ducks was pulling all the pin feathers out by hand.  Everyone was lamenting about the fact we did not have any fine tweezers on hand. Overall, it was quite an experience for me, especially hanging and getting to know the fine staff at The Herbfarm.  They are truly a talented and fun group of people. 

For the past six and half months, I have been volunteering at The Herbfarm, not at the restaurant but actually at the farm.  They have a five acre field in Redmond/Woodinville, and it is absolutely amazing.  I have been enjoying working on the farm and taking care of the animals but meeting the people has been the best part of this volunteer program. 

Here is Bill Vingelen, the head gardener at The Herbfarm, behind him is the quails that we drove to Puyallup, WA, and picked up over the summer:

Beside learning about organic gardening, we also take care of the Mangalitsa Pigs,Chicken, Ducks and Quails. 

Here is a picture of the wooly Mangalitsa Pigs hungrily gobbling up the food that I just gave them.  They are known for their seven inch layer of fat and they love good hard scratches on their back and around their faces, especially behind their ears:

Every Friday I go to Hopelink, a food bank in Kirkland, and gather as much bread, vegetables and fruits as my car will hold, for example my first trip to Hopelink in the spring, which is quite a lot as you can see, the bread was literally spilling out of my car when I opened the door.

Next month, The Herbfarm from November 5th to 15th is doing “Makin’ Bacon” menu, which should be an absolute must if you are a pork lover, so call and make a reservation before they are all sold out.

Currently these are the crops that we are growing and harvesting right now:  cabbage, kale, rutabaga, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, daikon radish, turnips, parsnips, salsify, burdock and beans.

Here are some sunset beans that I spent some time harvesting on Friday.  They are so beautiful and astounding to see for the first time, the purples and pinks are just brilliant and glow in my hand. (The iphone does not do these bean any justice at all.)  The first picture is us cutting it open to see if the beans are ready to be picked.  As you can see in the second picture, the beans are a pretty good size.  The far right picture shows them hanging from their vine, ready to be picked by me.

 

Here some purple kohlrabi peeping out of the ground.  They will not be ready to be picked for awhile and are very hardy and can get as large as tennis balls.

 

That’s my update for the week, check again next week to see what else is going on at The Herbfarm.  Below is a beautiful maple tree from behind the restaurant and its fallen leaves on the ground.  Happy Fall Everyone!