The Art of Smoking Duck Breasts and Making Carbonara Pasta with Cured Duck Bacon

When it comes to cooking duck breasts, there's nothing quite like the experience of smoking them over low heat. The result is a tender and flavorful dish that's sure to impress even the most discerning palates. In this article, we'll take you through the process of smoking duck breasts and making a delicious carbonara pasta dish featuring cured duck bacon.

To start, our ducks have firmed up significantly, much like pork belly would if it were being cured for bacon. To prepare them for smoking, we thoroughly rinse and pat them dry with paper towels. Next, we'll smoke these suckers using our preferred method of choice – in this case, a stovetop smoker with cherry and apple wood chips. The ideal temperature for smoking is around 225 degrees Fahrenheit, and we'll aim to achieve this temperature for about two hours. Our goal is to smoke the duck breasts until the thickest part reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

To ensure even cooking and prevent overcooking, we'll wrap each breast tightly in aluminum foil and smoke them as slowly and low as possible. This technique is ideal for duck breasts because they're so fatty – it allows us to achieve a tender and juicy result without sacrificing flavor. Once our duck breasts have reached the desired temperature, we'll carefully remove them from the smoker and let them cool completely before refrigerating or freezing them.

Now that our duck breasts are smoked and ready to use, it's time to turn our attention to making some pasta. We're using an equal mix of all-purpose flour and durum semolina flours, with a small amount of kosher salt added for flavor. To create the liquid component of our pasta dough, we'll be using duck eggs – specifically, about 120 grams per 150 grams of flour. Since we want to achieve a total liquid weight of 135 grams, we'll make up the remaining amount by adding olive oil to the mixture.

To combine these ingredients, we'll use a fork to whisk them together until they form a smooth and thick slurry. We'll then wrap this mixture in plastic wrap and let it rest for about 20 minutes, allowing the flours to absorb the liquid and creating a more cohesive dough. Next, we'll knead our pasta dough by hand into a smooth, taut ball – an ideal shape for an extruder or a skilled pasta maker.

Once our pasta is ready, we'll cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until we're ready to use it. Because our pasta is made from a dry mixture of flours, it's ideally suited for an extruder like this one – which produces restaurant-style noodles with a unique chewy texture that's difficult to achieve by hand.

Now that our duck bacon has been crisped up in the pan and our pasta is ready to go, we can move on to making the carbonara component of our dish. To start, we'll take two duck eggs and beat them together until they're nice and smooth. Adding a generous amount of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese will add richness and depth to our custard. We'll also sprinkle in some twists of black pepper for added flavor.

Next, we'll cook our pasta in boiling water for just 90 seconds – not a second longer! Once it's cooked, we'll immediately remove the pasta from the pot and add it directly to the pan containing the duck bacon and fat. By tossing everything together thoroughly, we can distribute the egg mixture evenly throughout the dish.

The final touch is adding a generous helping of grated cured duck egg yolk on top – this will give our carbonara an extra boost of richness and flavor. And with that, our dish is complete. To serve, simply drizzle some champagne instead of red wine vinegar over the top and enjoy!

But did we really get it right? Our perfect bite is a question that requires years and years of practice to answer correctly – even for the most skilled pasta makers and chefs. So take another bite, close your eyes, and savor the flavors of our expertly crafted duck bacon carbonara.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmake sure you have some skin and carrot and some crispy potato and then I'll rub it around in the reduction a little bit yeah you did yes you may eat it I get it now well it's everything I like made exquisitely but what's perfect is you made it for me is that you're speechless perfect buy it perfect hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at the perfect bite engineered for penn badgley 'z character on you kind of a morbid choice for a Valentine's Day special I know but what can I say I wanted to try that roast chicken so the first place we're starting is with the chicken itself we want to find a high quality preferably heritage chicken one with nice bright yellow skin and lots of delicious fat deposits like this one this chicken lived a much happier life than your average supermarket chicken and you're going to taste the difference also it was air chilled which is gonna give us a crispier skin despite not having the time to dry brine over nights Penn Badgley 'z characters latest creepy love interests gracefully butterflies her bird so we're gonna do the same snipping out the spine and placing a strategic cut at the base of the breastbone so we can crack it open this allows us to lay our chicken out flat for faster roasting times crispier skin and more evenly cooked meat but for even crispier skin we want to engage in the slightly unsettling process of separating the skin from the meat itself just go ahead and regular your fingers on in there and make sure you do this well before your date arrives the other reason we want to separate the skin from the meats is because we're gonna stuff it with compound butter in the show it looks like the chicken has been rubbed both under and over the skin within her butter so as perp abyssion tradition that's exactly what I'm gonna do I've got some chopped fresh parsley rosemary and thyme which I'm gonna add to about 6 ounces of butter along with a generous pinch of kosher salt and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper mash it together with a fork until homogenous and then we're gonna start rubbing it underneath the skin of our chicken this is way more important than the butter rubbed all over the skin itself because it's going too deeply flavor the meat so make sure you've got the butter dispersed evenly throughout the bird and then in the show there's clearly butter rubbed all over the outside of the skin as well this is not my preferred method I feel like this is how you end up with a chicken covered and burnt herbs but we got to be accurate last stage of chicken preparation involves a sharp poking device grab your favorite sharp pokey thing and start poking the chicken all over especially in the fat deposits this is gonna help the fat better render out as it roasts and in turn give us crispier skin next up the chicken was roasted on a bed of halved heads of garlic and slices of lemon then I'm gonna rub it down with a little bit more butter and place it in a 450 degree fahrenheit oven for about 45 minutes just enough time to contend with our sides I've got some lovely little yellow fingerlings here that I'm gonna start in cold water bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes until a paring knife enters them with ease that I'm gonna remove them to a rimmed baking sheet let them cool off for about 10 minutes and squash them using another rimmed baking sheet the squashing aspect of these potatoes is going to give them more surface area and kragle Xand cracks which should help us get them nice and crispy now for the cooking oil I'm going to place about a cup of canola or vegetable oil and a small saute pan add some crushed cloves of garlic and fresh herbs and cook over medium low heat until bubbling and the garlic is lightly browned then I'm going to strain this oil into my intended potato cooking pan bring it up to about 375 degrees Fahrenheit and drop in the potatoes flipping after about 2 to 3 minutes or until lightly golden brown let them drain on a wire rack and keep them in a low oven to keep them warm while we finish cooking the rest now I've got the fried garlic here from earlier which I'm going to use to make a lovely flavor paste combining with some freshly grated lemon zest and chopping until fine then all that's left to do is season our potatoes and then place them in a large bowl along with our flavor paste a little bit of kosher salt and some freshly ground black pepper then we're gonna give our potatoes a spirited toss II toss and there you have it some super flavorful super crispy potatoes as for the carrots they looked pretty simply prepared so I'm just gonna peel them chop them in half if they're a little too thick place them on a rimmed baking sheet with a little bit of olive oil some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper toss to combine and place in a 400 degree fahrenheit oven for about 30 minutes until they're nicely browned and tender meanwhile our chicken is emerging from the oven looking pretty fine the skin is evenly brown and crisp and the thickest part of the breast registers 155 degrees feral and slick with chicken fat but whatever you do do not cut into this chicken for at least 30 minutes let it rest at room temperature uncovered just enough time to make what looked like a balsamic reduction probably the simplest thing we're making today into a wide saute pan goes about a cup of high-quality balsamic vinegar which we're gonna simmer over a medium-high heat until reduced by about half and thick and syrupy and can easily coat the back of a spoon and with that all of our pieces are in place and it's time to plate up first we have to carve up our chicken we're going to start by cutting it in half at the breastbone and I could just eat the whole half chicken like this but no one wants to see that so we're gonna plate it up all elegant like on the show first I'm going to isolate a skin on boneless breast cut it into thick slices and plate it up along side some crispy potatoes and roasted carrots and there you have it the supposed perfect bite for joe or will or whatever he's calling himself this season almost forgot the balsamic reduction aka what I think is going to single-handedly kill this dish and fittingly we're gonna test this perfect bite out on Jess I guess I love you you love me or you love Netflix seriously so this is pretty good but the only thing I'm not really digging is this balsamic reduction it's just overpowering the crispy potatoes and the carrots I totally agree I thought the balsamic reduction was a bad idea I'm glad I'm not the only one so it's safe to say that this is not your perfect bite it's good but it's not my perfect bite so what would be in your perfect bite I love duck I love carbonara is there such a thing as duck carbonara you're my little duck carbonara that didn't work let's find out how to make duck carbonara after this commercial break all right and we are back at my metric for figuring out what Jessa's perfect bite is a little bit more simple she loves duck she loves carbonara so I'm gonna make an all duck carbonara first I'm gonna take a page out of Brad Leone's book and cure some duck egg yolks creating a mixture of equal parts kosher salt and sugar pouring it into a pie plate making little divots where I'm going to place my egg yolks separating the egg yolks from their whites placing them in to their respective divots and then topping them with more of this sugar salt mixture to encase them in a sort of moisture sucking cocoon yeah once we make sure they're gently but thoroughly packed in sugar and salt it's time to cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three and up to six days so if you want to make this in time for Valentine's Day this Friday get started now after their salt cure you will find that they have firmed up considerably but I want them firm enough to grates like cheese so we're gonna place them in either a low oven or a dehydrator at 150 degrees Fahrenheit for about two hours until firm and dry throughout and then on the first day that we started carrying the eggs we're also gonna cure some duck breasts we're gonna start by combining four teaspoons each kosher salt and freshly ground pepper five teaspoons of granulated sugar a tablespoon of maple syrup or blackstrap molasses and about 3/4 of a teaspoon of pink curing salt or prog powder number one to this we're gonna add about two cups of distilled room-temperature water tiny whisking until most of the particulate is all but dissolved and there you have it a cure for our duck breasts which we have every intention of making into duck bacon yes there is such a thing and yes it should be in your mouth right now when a pour the cure over the breasts until they are submerged wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least a day and up to three flipping every 12 hours or so to make sure that everybody's getting a little bit of attention a few days later and if you find that your duck breasts have firmed up significantly the same way that pork belly would if you were curing that for bacon we're going to thoroughly rinse and Pat the breasts dry and then it's time to smoke these suckers you can do this via your smoking method of choice I'm using this stovetop smoker with some cherry and apple wood chips and ideally you want to smoke at about 225 degrees for about two hours this is unfortunately a rather imprecise process using a stovetop smoker but duck breasts are pretty forgiving because they're so darn fatty so I'm gonna get this thing smoked and wrap it tightly in aluminium foil and try to smoke it as slow and low as possible until the thickest part of the breast registers 150 degrees Fahrenheit at this point we should find that our duck breasts have turned into a pair of smoky Dazzlers which we are gonna cover and chill in the fridge completely before utilization next to last we have the duck egg pasta itself I'm going with an equal mix that's 150 grams each of all-purpose and durum semolina flours about 3 grams of kosher salt tiny whisk together make it well in the center crack into duck eggs should be about 120 grams but we want it to liquid weight of 135 grams so we're gonna make up the rest with olive oil beets into a slurry using a fork taking in little bits of flour with each turn until it's nice and thick and ready to be mixed by a paddle go ahead and mix this together for one to two minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed by the flours but it's still pretty dry and crumbly semolina flour is very patient when it comes to sucking up liquids so we're gonna wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes before kneading by hand into a smooth taut ball now this very dry pasta dough is ideally suited for a pasta extruder like this one I find that extruded pasta has that restaurant style chew to it that is very very difficult to achieve by hand so once you have extruded all of your pasta into your preferred shape we are covering these little pasta nests with plastic wrap and refrigerate until we're ready to use them or you could freeze them and have fresh pasta whenever you like but for me pasta time is now so it's time to start cutting up our duck bacon into adult or whatever the Italian equivalent is to not don't go ahead and cut your duck bacon up into thick hot nasty-ass chunks which we are gonna start in a cold pan and slowly crisp over medium heat in order to render out as much fat as possible meanwhile right before we cook our pasta we're making our sort of carbonara custard out of two duck eggs plus one extra duck egg yolk for a little bit of added richness we're gonna beat this until homogenous and then add about 1/2 a cup of freshly grated pecorino romano cheese along with the requisite twists of freshly ground black pepper beat to combine and then we're heading back over to the stovetop where our bacon is crisp so we're gonna add two cloves of crushed garlic cooking for about one minute over medium-low heat until fragrant well thats gone we're gonna add our pasta to some boiling water we've kept at the ready cook not a second longer than 90 seconds kill the heat under our frying pan add the pasta directly to the frying pan and toss in the duck bacon and duck bacon fat and were immediately bringing this mixture over to a pre warmed metal bowl and the bowl goes our pasta and on top of that goes our egg and cheese mixture also a generous but cautious pinch of kosher salt and about 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water more as necessary toss this guy rigorously which is going to give us a nice creamy sauce as the residual heat from the pasta gently cooks the eggs into it the perfect custard twist in a pretty little nest by virtue of a carving fork and soup ladle and then for some extra 2-quart of eggy richness we're going to generously grate our cured duck egg yolks over top and since this dish doesn't really go with red wine vinegar with champagne instead and there you have it the ultimate expression of duck and carbonara now all there is left to do is see if it's her perfect bite this is really difficult I can't get it boy it's okay you're not Italian let me help takes years and years of practice so what do you think it's duck it's carbonara it's everything I wanted this is my perfect bite now are you just saying that because that's what we wrote in the script hold on I lost my spot no no okay but seriously do you like it but seriously I love it Plus dude you made duck bacon definitely a member of the clean Jess Club what youmake sure you have some skin and carrot and some crispy potato and then I'll rub it around in the reduction a little bit yeah you did yes you may eat it I get it now well it's everything I like made exquisitely but what's perfect is you made it for me is that you're speechless perfect buy it perfect hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at the perfect bite engineered for penn badgley 'z character on you kind of a morbid choice for a Valentine's Day special I know but what can I say I wanted to try that roast chicken so the first place we're starting is with the chicken itself we want to find a high quality preferably heritage chicken one with nice bright yellow skin and lots of delicious fat deposits like this one this chicken lived a much happier life than your average supermarket chicken and you're going to taste the difference also it was air chilled which is gonna give us a crispier skin despite not having the time to dry brine over nights Penn Badgley 'z characters latest creepy love interests gracefully butterflies her bird so we're gonna do the same snipping out the spine and placing a strategic cut at the base of the breastbone so we can crack it open this allows us to lay our chicken out flat for faster roasting times crispier skin and more evenly cooked meat but for even crispier skin we want to engage in the slightly unsettling process of separating the skin from the meat itself just go ahead and regular your fingers on in there and make sure you do this well before your date arrives the other reason we want to separate the skin from the meats is because we're gonna stuff it with compound butter in the show it looks like the chicken has been rubbed both under and over the skin within her butter so as perp abyssion tradition that's exactly what I'm gonna do I've got some chopped fresh parsley rosemary and thyme which I'm gonna add to about 6 ounces of butter along with a generous pinch of kosher salt and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper mash it together with a fork until homogenous and then we're gonna start rubbing it underneath the skin of our chicken this is way more important than the butter rubbed all over the skin itself because it's going too deeply flavor the meat so make sure you've got the butter dispersed evenly throughout the bird and then in the show there's clearly butter rubbed all over the outside of the skin as well this is not my preferred method I feel like this is how you end up with a chicken covered and burnt herbs but we got to be accurate last stage of chicken preparation involves a sharp poking device grab your favorite sharp pokey thing and start poking the chicken all over especially in the fat deposits this is gonna help the fat better render out as it roasts and in turn give us crispier skin next up the chicken was roasted on a bed of halved heads of garlic and slices of lemon then I'm gonna rub it down with a little bit more butter and place it in a 450 degree fahrenheit oven for about 45 minutes just enough time to contend with our sides I've got some lovely little yellow fingerlings here that I'm gonna start in cold water bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes until a paring knife enters them with ease that I'm gonna remove them to a rimmed baking sheet let them cool off for about 10 minutes and squash them using another rimmed baking sheet the squashing aspect of these potatoes is going to give them more surface area and kragle Xand cracks which should help us get them nice and crispy now for the cooking oil I'm going to place about a cup of canola or vegetable oil and a small saute pan add some crushed cloves of garlic and fresh herbs and cook over medium low heat until bubbling and the garlic is lightly browned then I'm going to strain this oil into my intended potato cooking pan bring it up to about 375 degrees Fahrenheit and drop in the potatoes flipping after about 2 to 3 minutes or until lightly golden brown let them drain on a wire rack and keep them in a low oven to keep them warm while we finish cooking the rest now I've got the fried garlic here from earlier which I'm going to use to make a lovely flavor paste combining with some freshly grated lemon zest and chopping until fine then all that's left to do is season our potatoes and then place them in a large bowl along with our flavor paste a little bit of kosher salt and some freshly ground black pepper then we're gonna give our potatoes a spirited toss II toss and there you have it some super flavorful super crispy potatoes as for the carrots they looked pretty simply prepared so I'm just gonna peel them chop them in half if they're a little too thick place them on a rimmed baking sheet with a little bit of olive oil some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper toss to combine and place in a 400 degree fahrenheit oven for about 30 minutes until they're nicely browned and tender meanwhile our chicken is emerging from the oven looking pretty fine the skin is evenly brown and crisp and the thickest part of the breast registers 155 degrees feral and slick with chicken fat but whatever you do do not cut into this chicken for at least 30 minutes let it rest at room temperature uncovered just enough time to make what looked like a balsamic reduction probably the simplest thing we're making today into a wide saute pan goes about a cup of high-quality balsamic vinegar which we're gonna simmer over a medium-high heat until reduced by about half and thick and syrupy and can easily coat the back of a spoon and with that all of our pieces are in place and it's time to plate up first we have to carve up our chicken we're going to start by cutting it in half at the breastbone and I could just eat the whole half chicken like this but no one wants to see that so we're gonna plate it up all elegant like on the show first I'm going to isolate a skin on boneless breast cut it into thick slices and plate it up along side some crispy potatoes and roasted carrots and there you have it the supposed perfect bite for joe or will or whatever he's calling himself this season almost forgot the balsamic reduction aka what I think is going to single-handedly kill this dish and fittingly we're gonna test this perfect bite out on Jess I guess I love you you love me or you love Netflix seriously so this is pretty good but the only thing I'm not really digging is this balsamic reduction it's just overpowering the crispy potatoes and the carrots I totally agree I thought the balsamic reduction was a bad idea I'm glad I'm not the only one so it's safe to say that this is not your perfect bite it's good but it's not my perfect bite so what would be in your perfect bite I love duck I love carbonara is there such a thing as duck carbonara you're my little duck carbonara that didn't work let's find out how to make duck carbonara after this commercial break all right and we are back at my metric for figuring out what Jessa's perfect bite is a little bit more simple she loves duck she loves carbonara so I'm gonna make an all duck carbonara first I'm gonna take a page out of Brad Leone's book and cure some duck egg yolks creating a mixture of equal parts kosher salt and sugar pouring it into a pie plate making little divots where I'm going to place my egg yolks separating the egg yolks from their whites placing them in to their respective divots and then topping them with more of this sugar salt mixture to encase them in a sort of moisture sucking cocoon yeah once we make sure they're gently but thoroughly packed in sugar and salt it's time to cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three and up to six days so if you want to make this in time for Valentine's Day this Friday get started now after their salt cure you will find that they have firmed up considerably but I want them firm enough to grates like cheese so we're gonna place them in either a low oven or a dehydrator at 150 degrees Fahrenheit for about two hours until firm and dry throughout and then on the first day that we started carrying the eggs we're also gonna cure some duck breasts we're gonna start by combining four teaspoons each kosher salt and freshly ground pepper five teaspoons of granulated sugar a tablespoon of maple syrup or blackstrap molasses and about 3/4 of a teaspoon of pink curing salt or prog powder number one to this we're gonna add about two cups of distilled room-temperature water tiny whisking until most of the particulate is all but dissolved and there you have it a cure for our duck breasts which we have every intention of making into duck bacon yes there is such a thing and yes it should be in your mouth right now when a pour the cure over the breasts until they are submerged wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least a day and up to three flipping every 12 hours or so to make sure that everybody's getting a little bit of attention a few days later and if you find that your duck breasts have firmed up significantly the same way that pork belly would if you were curing that for bacon we're going to thoroughly rinse and Pat the breasts dry and then it's time to smoke these suckers you can do this via your smoking method of choice I'm using this stovetop smoker with some cherry and apple wood chips and ideally you want to smoke at about 225 degrees for about two hours this is unfortunately a rather imprecise process using a stovetop smoker but duck breasts are pretty forgiving because they're so darn fatty so I'm gonna get this thing smoked and wrap it tightly in aluminium foil and try to smoke it as slow and low as possible until the thickest part of the breast registers 150 degrees Fahrenheit at this point we should find that our duck breasts have turned into a pair of smoky Dazzlers which we are gonna cover and chill in the fridge completely before utilization next to last we have the duck egg pasta itself I'm going with an equal mix that's 150 grams each of all-purpose and durum semolina flours about 3 grams of kosher salt tiny whisk together make it well in the center crack into duck eggs should be about 120 grams but we want it to liquid weight of 135 grams so we're gonna make up the rest with olive oil beets into a slurry using a fork taking in little bits of flour with each turn until it's nice and thick and ready to be mixed by a paddle go ahead and mix this together for one to two minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed by the flours but it's still pretty dry and crumbly semolina flour is very patient when it comes to sucking up liquids so we're gonna wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes before kneading by hand into a smooth taut ball now this very dry pasta dough is ideally suited for a pasta extruder like this one I find that extruded pasta has that restaurant style chew to it that is very very difficult to achieve by hand so once you have extruded all of your pasta into your preferred shape we are covering these little pasta nests with plastic wrap and refrigerate until we're ready to use them or you could freeze them and have fresh pasta whenever you like but for me pasta time is now so it's time to start cutting up our duck bacon into adult or whatever the Italian equivalent is to not don't go ahead and cut your duck bacon up into thick hot nasty-ass chunks which we are gonna start in a cold pan and slowly crisp over medium heat in order to render out as much fat as possible meanwhile right before we cook our pasta we're making our sort of carbonara custard out of two duck eggs plus one extra duck egg yolk for a little bit of added richness we're gonna beat this until homogenous and then add about 1/2 a cup of freshly grated pecorino romano cheese along with the requisite twists of freshly ground black pepper beat to combine and then we're heading back over to the stovetop where our bacon is crisp so we're gonna add two cloves of crushed garlic cooking for about one minute over medium-low heat until fragrant well thats gone we're gonna add our pasta to some boiling water we've kept at the ready cook not a second longer than 90 seconds kill the heat under our frying pan add the pasta directly to the frying pan and toss in the duck bacon and duck bacon fat and were immediately bringing this mixture over to a pre warmed metal bowl and the bowl goes our pasta and on top of that goes our egg and cheese mixture also a generous but cautious pinch of kosher salt and about 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water more as necessary toss this guy rigorously which is going to give us a nice creamy sauce as the residual heat from the pasta gently cooks the eggs into it the perfect custard twist in a pretty little nest by virtue of a carving fork and soup ladle and then for some extra 2-quart of eggy richness we're going to generously grate our cured duck egg yolks over top and since this dish doesn't really go with red wine vinegar with champagne instead and there you have it the ultimate expression of duck and carbonara now all there is left to do is see if it's her perfect bite this is really difficult I can't get it boy it's okay you're not Italian let me help takes years and years of practice so what do you think it's duck it's carbonara it's everything I wanted this is my perfect bite now are you just saying that because that's what we wrote in the script hold on I lost my spot no no okay but seriously do you like it but seriously I love it Plus dude you made duck bacon definitely a member of the clean Jess Club what you\n"