Heads up: fresh Duck crowns £5.49 at Lidl

[finlay666]

Went into mine today o pick up some of the new LSD NiMh rechargeable batteries on offer (£3 for 4 which is a bargain in itself) and spotted one of these in the fresh fridge bit

£5.49 for an approx 900g fresh Duck crown

Works out from the crown you get (assuming you can butcher half decently):

- 2x 8oz+ (mine came in at 240 and 248g, around 9oz, respectively after trimming sinew but keeping the skin on) duck breasts,
- ALL the skin barring that on the legs which are removed (the only bit that is actually removed from this 'crown') and you can render off the fat if you roast it, for cooking with later
- The rest of the bones for making some gorgeous stock, or gravy

Works out very cost effective if you want a bit of duck too, by Asda's price for duck breast from the same supplier

Took me less than 5 minutes to remove the breasts (and pick the little bits of meat from the start of the wings, oysters etc) so it seems like a decent bargain, if you wanted to roast it on it's own you can, but I took one of the breasts, pan fried (skin on) then made some stir fry veges with plenty of garlic and chillies and that served 2 easily

For anyone interested in learning how to pair a bird for the breast meat as full fillets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...rIaaNoaQ#t=37s

That's pretty much how prepared the duck is from there, as you can see it's just the legs removed, no giblets packaged with it for needless weight increases or anything else like that

[TheAnimus]

They also have the duck sceptre available too.

But seriously, having tried to pair the breasts before now I will say I did not find it easy.

[finlay666]

Was racking my brain trying to figure out what cut a sceptre was... then I got it. Manflu isn't doing my sense of hunour any favours

It's really having a semi flexible boning knife, care and practice (3 years working in a butchers does come in handy for stuff like this)

The wishbone/joints are the tricky bit