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And I'm lucky that you're mine! I was looking for a good recipe for Easter lunch and came across five different recipes in my books for tea smoked duck. The trad method required a 6 hour marinade, followed by a 6 hour air-dry, then 30 minutes smoking over tea leaves, then steaming for about an hour before leaving to cool prior to a deep frying the whole or half duck, depending on your capacity! In spite of my love of deep frying I didn't have the capacity or the inclination to be frying half a duck while my guests hung around so I opted for the Pitt Cue Co adaptation. Brined the birds in a tea brine overnight. I quadrupled these quantities for two birds: 1.5 litres water, 50g tea leaves, 2.5cm ginger, 1 bulb of garlic (just used one), 2 star anise, 100ml soy sauce, 60ml honey and 50g smoked Maldon salt. They only called for one hour of air drying but that just didn't seem like enough so Mr and Mrs Ducky got a blow dry for about 8 minutes each. This great Chinese implement is used to puncture pork skin to make it easier for the fat to leach out and become wonderfully crispy. I figured it couldn't do any harm with a duck so I used it, more gently, on these two. Rubbed with a home made rub, again from the Pitt Cue Co book, 100g Maldon sea salt, 38g maple sugar, 12g black peppercorns, 5 g toasted fennel seeds, 5g star anise, 5g stick cinnamon and zest of half an orange all blitzed in a blender. Then onto the KK to smoke over cherry for about an hour and a half at 170C (ish) until internal temp got to 78C. The drip tray was essential and I added a bit of water periodically to reduce the duck fat smoke. Finger licking good with a gravy made with chicken stock, duck giblets and finished with the pieces of foie gras that were too small to fry. Not the same as the traditional tea smoking but very good nonetheless. I am not really into dessert but we had some Maraschino cherries to get rid of so I looked up a clafoutis recipe. This one https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/basic-clafoutis-51208430 was nice and simple and recommended using a cast iron pan. it was perfect for a KK and they tasted great. A lot of similarity with Yorkshire puddings and I will definitely try this again soon.

Damn that Easter Bunny! Instead of a nice basket of chocolates, he brought me a case of diarrhea! So, my anticipated lamb dinner got postponed until I felt OK to eat it. Trader Joe's pre-marinated rack of lamb (Rosemary & Garlic) dusted with some Greek seasonings - kinda heavy on the mint, but nice. On the KK @ 375F direct, with coffee wood chunks. Done. Plated, with some "melting potatoes" and glazed carrots (MacKenzie, some of those Maple Flakes went into the carrots - NICE! Thanks again!) Happy belated Easter, ya'll!

Hey now...............you stop that kind of talk MacKenzie

If you live in a very cold location and your grill is frozen, the gas burner is a fast easy efficient way to thaw out and pre-heat/heat-soak the hot face.. The volume of burning charcoal for a 235º low and slow cook would take too long.. light up extra charcoal and once heated you race by to 300º.. You can also use a old school sheet metal charcoal starter.. fill and light it, set on drip pan let rage until grill is heated, then pour a bit of what's left onto your charcoal in the basket and smoke away..

Coincidence perhaps, but tonight's dinner featured a new potato recipe that's apparently a hot trend right now - Melting Potatoes. https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a49569/melting-potatoes-recipe/ I made a couple of substitutions - duck fat for the butter; the olive oil was infused with garlic; and my spice blend was thyme, savory and purple crack salt. End result was similar to what you described - very crispy exterior and fluffy (almost mashed potato interior). Will definitely be putting this one in the recipe rotation!

Go for it, Shuley! Can't wait to see the pics. I'll go searching for one of those Chinese picks. Definitely will come in handy on a number of cooks. @tekobo - don't think for a minute that all that prep work on the Peking ducks got in the way of having an adult beverage (or 3!)

Food with handles is always a nice added benefit! @Bruce Pearson - thanks. Fortunately it only lasted a day.

ROFL

Those potatoes look awesome, Tony, who needs fries.

The "Chinese skin jabby thing" appears similar, albeit with longer spines, to a Tip-Pik ("Endorsed By Mr. Billiards!") which is used to refresh the tip of a billiards cue. I've seen pictures of dogs playing billiards, but never ducks.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-01/cricket-australia-under-mounting-scrutiny/9608638 it's basically scrubbing up the ball to make it swing better or to get it replaced Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Gosh, they look good @tony b! Got to get that into my rotation too. Off to the shop to buy some 'taters!

Glad my wife does not look on this forum. she loves duck - and this would pre-empt our visit to a newly opened chop house next weekend. but, man does that look good - nice job - diggin on the 'tenderizer' I will be back for this one

Stunning duck cook, @wilburpan would be envious! Short-cuts or not! That Chinese implement looks medieval! Looks more like a self-defense weapon than a cooking implement! I love clafoutis! Cherries and duck - match made in heaven!

That looks amazing. My local butcher carries both whole duck and duck breasts..... I sense a hankering coming on.

Certainly everything looks super delicious and that includes the gravy. Mouthwatering every bite, I'm sure. BTW that looks like a dangerous weapon and I'm sure it does the job.

Tee hee. Maybe the Aussie cricket guys should have used one of those Tip-Piks on their balls. They could have claimed it was an official performance enhancing tool, as endorsed by Mr B!

Sorry to hear that. We tend to make hero’s out of our athletes, and when we find out they aren’t the hero’s we thought it’s disappointing

Yum they turned out great love the rub Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Thanks all. I did look up @wilburpan and @tony b's posts about duck and saw that you worked hard for your great results. i worked a little less hard to make more time for dessert and drinking adult beverages. I am still not keen on trying to fry a whole/half bird in a wok or deep fat fryer. May adapt the standard recipe to tea smoke early on in the KK, steam in IDK and then finish in the KK at a high heat. The Chinese skin jabby thing is awesome. If used on pork skin it gives you wonderfully thin, crispy crackling. Go searching in a Chinese catering store near you. My first one was given to me by the chef in my local Chinese takeaway and my back up was bought in the Bowery in New York.

What’s that all about?

Those ducks look delicious and the sweets look very tasty also, nice cook.

Oh no, you ate all your potatoes and planted the rest.[emoji44]