Duck Roulade

Remember the Chicken Galantine I featured a few days ago? The pain-in-the-butt, tedious, time-consuming pate wrapped in paper-thin chicken skin? Well, this is it's cousin; Duck Roulade. Duck Roulade is essentially the same thing - a duck pate with an inlay or seared duck breast, rolled in duck skin that has been scraped until it is paper thin. The one main difference is that the duck roulade is roasted, whereas the chicken galantine is poached. 

The duck roulade is tied with butcher's twine to hold it together, rather than being wrapped in cheesecloth. It is then roasted in a pan containing mirepoix, herbs, and duck fat; and is periodically bated in the duck fat. This gives great color, flavor, and texture to the roulade, especially the skin, as it becomes crisp and noticeable in contrast to the skin of the galantine. So I much preferred this, and thought it was ALMOST worth all the work. Almost.

I found the duck easier to debone than the chicken, but that was possibly only because I had done a chicken the day before and they are very similar. However, the duck was much bloodier and gross. The duck meat was however, much more difficult to pull apart from the skin. It did not comes right off like the chicken, so it was tricky to pull the meat off without ripping the skin or leaving a lot of meat behind. The duck also needed much more scraping because the skin was thicker and fattier.