Duck Noodle Soup

My good friend Jesse and I have love to cook together. So, yesterday we decided to make something absolutely delicious. Jesse suggested we make this duck noodle soup his Dad had in Chinatown in NYC. I was up for the task.  We first had to defrost the duck which took a while. In that time, we got the broth ready. For the broth we used onions, celery, garlic, carrots, parsley, cumin, allspice, pepper, a Serrano chili, and ginger. We brought this to a boil and then let it simmer. 

After the Duck defrosted, we dissected the duck into eighths. With the wings and the carcass, we added directly into the broth. I seared the breasts and legs skin side down to let all the fat out. Make sure to trim excess skin and fat because that is not wanted. 

As a side note, with the left over skin use it to make cracklin. Just put them in a pan without any oil because the skin has a lot of fat in it anyways. Cook until golden brown and delicious. 

Back to the soup, when the breasts and legs are seared add them to the soup. At this point skim the soup of the fat on top. After an hour and a half of simmering, we took out the breasts and legs, we sliced the breasts so that they can be served sliced int he soup. As for the legs, we shredded them and chopped them up with garlic salt, pepper, water chestnuts, and an egg white and mixed that so we got a mixture to fill dumplings with. We used wonton skins and made duck dumplings.

 Once we shredded the duck meat from the rest of the carcass and the broth was ready for the noodles, we added the dumplings and noodles and cooked for around 4 minutes. I finished the soup with salt, low sodium soy sauce, bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms  and toasted sesame seeds. If you want to add fresh cilantro and sesame oil that is fine as well.