So I think I did this wrong...
Last night, a friend of mine and I went out and shot a few ducks. Usually we just cut the breast meat out of them, and for the gadwalls this is what we stuck with. But we also got a hen green-winged teal and a hen bufflehead; both very small. So I thought I might just pluck these...duh duh duh.
I hung them up last night and got to them this morning at 5. I'm usually not at work till 6:30 so this should have worked out well. My 'technique' we'll call it, was to start off by plucking the body. After awhile i noticed that the feathers, while pulling out, were leaving significant amounts of 'quill' in the skin. So I thought, huh, I'll have to try something different. Different being to then remove the feet, wings and head and then try to peel the skin off with my knife.
This sort of worked not too bad; everything looked ok. Then came the problems.
Logically I thought, need to get the guts out next. Stuck the knife under the rib cage/breastbone, opened it up and proceeded to remove the inards. But the esophogus didn't pull out cleanly even though the head was gone. It sort of broke.
In the middle of the intestine.
And leaked sh*t on the floor of the garage in a semi-spraying manner. The rest of the intestine was now dangling from the bird's ass. Lovely. Now what do?
Remove the bird-buttocks I guess.
So I cut the lower half of the bird off at the spine and removed the offending bits.
And then the legs fell off.
And the heart was still inside. Next to the rest of the esophogus. Dig, Dig, Cut, Cut. Remove heart. Poked the esophogus out with my finger.
I'm now left with half a bird carcass with pristine breast meat, but no legs. Washed it out with cold water in the kitchen sink, put it in a freezer bag and into the freezer.
Wash.
At work by 7.
What was I supposed to do with such a little bird?
Last night, a friend of mine and I went out and shot a few ducks. Usually we just cut the breast meat out of them, and for the gadwalls this is what we stuck with. But we also got a hen green-winged teal and a hen bufflehead; both very small. So I thought I might just pluck these...duh duh duh.
I hung them up last night and got to them this morning at 5. I'm usually not at work till 6:30 so this should have worked out well. My 'technique' we'll call it, was to start off by plucking the body. After awhile i noticed that the feathers, while pulling out, were leaving significant amounts of 'quill' in the skin. So I thought, huh, I'll have to try something different. Different being to then remove the feet, wings and head and then try to peel the skin off with my knife.
This sort of worked not too bad; everything looked ok. Then came the problems.
Logically I thought, need to get the guts out next. Stuck the knife under the rib cage/breastbone, opened it up and proceeded to remove the inards. But the esophogus didn't pull out cleanly even though the head was gone. It sort of broke.
In the middle of the intestine.
And leaked sh*t on the floor of the garage in a semi-spraying manner. The rest of the intestine was now dangling from the bird's ass. Lovely. Now what do?
Remove the bird-buttocks I guess.
So I cut the lower half of the bird off at the spine and removed the offending bits.
And then the legs fell off.
And the heart was still inside. Next to the rest of the esophogus. Dig, Dig, Cut, Cut. Remove heart. Poked the esophogus out with my finger.
I'm now left with half a bird carcass with pristine breast meat, but no legs. Washed it out with cold water in the kitchen sink, put it in a freezer bag and into the freezer.
Wash.
At work by 7.
What was I supposed to do with such a little bird?
