Duck Burgers

Duck burgers are a great thing to make when you have skinless duck breasts lying around — a common occurrence for duck hunters, or people who raise birds. Here’s how I like to make them.

I open with the skinless duck breast comment because I can’t in good conscience tell you to pull the skin off a duck breast to make duck burgers. I find that to be a sin. But if you want to, go for it. At least then render the duck fat, and then consider making chicharron en salsa verde with the cracklins.

This is your best bet if you don’t hunt, by the way. I’ve never seen skinless duck breasts sold in stores.

But hunters get lots of them. I accumulate skinless duck breasts from “off” ducks like spoonies, sea ducks and some diver ducks, like goldeneyes, as well as from better-tasting ducks that have suffered hematoma between the skin and meat, making them not fun to eat with the skin on.

And obviously to make duck burgers you are going to need to grind your own duck meat, because again, so far as I know, no one sells ground duck burger.

I grind mine with about 15 percent pork fat by weight; that makes nice duck burgers. You can go as low as 10 percent or as high as 25 percent, and you can use bacon ends or beef fat, too.

You can’t really use duck fat, however, because it is too unsaturated: It will melt out of your burger patties as they cook, leaving the pan greasy and your duck burgers dry.

Once ground, you can freeze your duck burger for a year or so, if it’s vacuum sealed. Some people I know pre-make patties with a burger cutter. I don’t, because I am as likely to make Mexican chorizo with the ground duck as anything else.

Cooking Duck Burgers

Ground duck is wetter and stickier than ground beef, so I do not recommend that you add anything to the mixture, or else the patties will have a soggy mouthfeel. Gross.

I also recommend that you grind your duck fine, like a 4.5 mm die or thereabouts, because it will hold together better, and make a better smash burger, which is what I like to do with my duck burgers.

To do that, you heat pan over high heat, then add a little duck fat, or oil. Salt the duck burger right before it hits the pan. Lay a patty down in the pan and use a bacon press or other, smaller pan, to press the patty to about the width of your finger, so about 3/4 of an inch.

Let this sear for 30 seconds, then slide the weight off. Cook for another minute or so, then flip.

Your burgers will need another 90 seconds to 3 minutes on this side, depending on how well done you like them, so this is the moment to top your duck burgers with things like caramelized onions, or roasted green chiles, or something like that, then a slab of cheese.

If you do the cheese, you will want to cover the pan so it melts.

Toppings

Obviously these are entirely up to you. But I designed these duck burgers and their accompaniments to play well with each other.

First are some bitter greens, like a “mesclun” salad mix, watercress, dandelion greens or something like that. This is a rich burger so you want that contrast.

As for the cheese, I like horseradish cheddar because it adds a zippy note. Monterey jack or provolone or Swiss are all fine choices.

Finally, I made a parsley-duck fat aioli to go with the burgers. Fancy, eh? It is, sorta, but you can make it in a minute or two if you have a blender.

Oh, and those homemade French fries in the picture? Yeah, I fried them in duck fat.

Also keep in mind that ground duck breast made into burgers will work perfectly well in my recipes for green chile elk burgers, as well as chorizo burgers.