murder most fowl
Let me preface this story by saying the ducks were against us from the very start. This way, you, as a reader, are not left in the awkward position of having to figure out how I feel about this matter. Now you know.
Yesterday, we had an experiment in sausage-making. It was declared by Chef to be known as "Sausage Fest," and lo, somewhere around 10 different sausage recipes were chosen randomly by pairs of students the classroom over.
With hopeful eyes and even more hopeful stomachs, they scrabbled over the various grinders available and assembled appropriate mise en place. Attachments were meted out, and work began much as usual.
It was in this environment that my partner and I were bested by a most wily trio of ducks. Let me begin at the beginning.
Our assignment was duck chorizo. It seemed quite promising. Both of us were quite fond of all the ingredients involved, and were sure it would be very tasty when done, and that we'd be quite pleased with the results. To that end, my partner cut up fatback and pork butt, and I retrieved a duck (stored sous vide) from the walk-in cooler. After slicing the package open, I tilted it upside down over a bowl to drain the blood and juices and was greeted with a most horrendous smell. At first, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, but soon realised it emanated from the duck. I peeled back the package a little further and saw grayish-greenish skin. "Chef? I think this duck is...questionable." I said, calling him over.
"Ewww. I'd say try another."
I pulled a second duck out and began the same treatment. Our recipe required 12 oz. of duck breast (boneless and skinless), and these whole ducks were all we had. Duck #2 was, if possible, in worse condition than the first. Our entire table of people begged us to take the bowl of stench away before they got sick, and we knew it was particularly bad when another student who had previously been a butcher for quite a long time was disturbed by the smell and condition of the meat.
By this point, I was seriously questioning whether we'd be able to go through with our assigned variety of sausage. Chef told us to try one more time, and so I apprehensively obtained one more duck. "Third time's the charm," my partner encouraged. "Or three strikes and we're out," I responded.
As it happened, we were in luck. Third duck was fine, and I happily took the breasts off and skinned them, freezing the skin for a later stage of the sausage assembly. We began our work with the meat, making sure to chill it as much as possible along the way.
We'd gotten an old-school hand-crank grinder. Which still seems a cool idea, but perhaps one better suited to people with greater physical strength than my partner or I. Also greater physical height, although my partner is quite tall (as compared to me, anyway). Leverage is important. In any case, chalking it up to whatever you like, our meat would NOT grind properly. We tried several times, too.
Instead, what it would do was look rather promising for the first few minutes, wherein we'd get a little bit coming out the dye in a nice medium grind like we'd meant to do. Then, the grinder would proceed to eat all the rest of the meat. It'd all go in, but nothing at all would come out.
At first, we thought it was that things weren't chopped up small enough before we attempted to grind them. Another classmate helpfully tried to chop these down while we fought with the machine. It didn't seem to make a bit of difference. At the end of the evening, it was with heavy hearts we left. We'd been bested by duck chorizo.
"How do you feel about zombie ducks?" I asked Chef.
"Zombie ducks...I think that's a distinct possibility," he mused. "A previous zombie duck probably took a hunk out of those first two. Makes sense."
"I think it was a zombie duck conspiracy, and they had it in for us from the start."
"I think you're probably right."
Yesterday, we had an experiment in sausage-making. It was declared by Chef to be known as "Sausage Fest," and lo, somewhere around 10 different sausage recipes were chosen randomly by pairs of students the classroom over.
With hopeful eyes and even more hopeful stomachs, they scrabbled over the various grinders available and assembled appropriate mise en place. Attachments were meted out, and work began much as usual.
It was in this environment that my partner and I were bested by a most wily trio of ducks. Let me begin at the beginning.
Our assignment was duck chorizo. It seemed quite promising. Both of us were quite fond of all the ingredients involved, and were sure it would be very tasty when done, and that we'd be quite pleased with the results. To that end, my partner cut up fatback and pork butt, and I retrieved a duck (stored sous vide) from the walk-in cooler. After slicing the package open, I tilted it upside down over a bowl to drain the blood and juices and was greeted with a most horrendous smell. At first, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, but soon realised it emanated from the duck. I peeled back the package a little further and saw grayish-greenish skin. "Chef? I think this duck is...questionable." I said, calling him over.
"Ewww. I'd say try another."
I pulled a second duck out and began the same treatment. Our recipe required 12 oz. of duck breast (boneless and skinless), and these whole ducks were all we had. Duck #2 was, if possible, in worse condition than the first. Our entire table of people begged us to take the bowl of stench away before they got sick, and we knew it was particularly bad when another student who had previously been a butcher for quite a long time was disturbed by the smell and condition of the meat.
By this point, I was seriously questioning whether we'd be able to go through with our assigned variety of sausage. Chef told us to try one more time, and so I apprehensively obtained one more duck. "Third time's the charm," my partner encouraged. "Or three strikes and we're out," I responded.
As it happened, we were in luck. Third duck was fine, and I happily took the breasts off and skinned them, freezing the skin for a later stage of the sausage assembly. We began our work with the meat, making sure to chill it as much as possible along the way.
We'd gotten an old-school hand-crank grinder. Which still seems a cool idea, but perhaps one better suited to people with greater physical strength than my partner or I. Also greater physical height, although my partner is quite tall (as compared to me, anyway). Leverage is important. In any case, chalking it up to whatever you like, our meat would NOT grind properly. We tried several times, too.
Instead, what it would do was look rather promising for the first few minutes, wherein we'd get a little bit coming out the dye in a nice medium grind like we'd meant to do. Then, the grinder would proceed to eat all the rest of the meat. It'd all go in, but nothing at all would come out.
At first, we thought it was that things weren't chopped up small enough before we attempted to grind them. Another classmate helpfully tried to chop these down while we fought with the machine. It didn't seem to make a bit of difference. At the end of the evening, it was with heavy hearts we left. We'd been bested by duck chorizo.
"How do you feel about zombie ducks?" I asked Chef.
"Zombie ducks...I think that's a distinct possibility," he mused. "A previous zombie duck probably took a hunk out of those first two. Makes sense."
"I think it was a zombie duck conspiracy, and they had it in for us from the start."
"I think you're probably right."