It was the dry-aged duck at The Naramata Inn (RIP) that inspired me to start dry-aging at Ernest’s.

When properly scored, seared, rendered, and cooked, fresh duck breast is good. But the dry-aged duck at the Inn was excellent: the skin brittle and crisp, and the meat brawny and tender, in a way I hadn’t experienced before. The Inn was buying dry-aged crowns from Yarrow Meadows,^[1] but one of the chefs, Macia, gave me some tips on doing it myself.

Crowns are duck carcasses that have had the wing tips, wingettes, legs, and the lower portion of the spine removed. At … Continue reading.