You may remember seven months ago we got some adorable little ducklings... Well, they are all grown up now, and there are (well, were) three males. Completely superfluous to our egg laying needs, so Xmas dinner here we come...
This photo is the ducks just before we selected our dinner -- don't ask me which one we took other than it was a male!
Danny the ever amazing built me this plucking machine out of bits of a broken washing machine -- it's not quite as efficient as the ones you can buy, but it certainly makes the job a lot easier to only have to do a bit by hand at the end rather than the whole thing! Also, we've read that ducks are harder to pluck than chickens, so we'll see how the plucker goes with the chickens next autumn...
Anyhow, Friday was dispatch day, so he spent two days resting in the fridge, and then yesterday I roasted him! He weighed in at 1.4kg deadweight, so rather on the small side, but Indian Runner ducks are really egg birds, not meat birds. Regardless, it's plenty of duck for just the two of us.
On the plate: Duck raised by us, cabbage and brussels sprouts grown by Margaret Rendall on Sanday, and potatoes and neeps (that's rutabaga for you Americans) grown by James Muir, also on Sanday. So that's something like 3/4 of what's on this plate was produced on this little island! Next year hopefully more of the veg will have been grown here at Sparrowhall (as I think I am starting to understand the wind a bit better hopefully). :)
