Birthday Birds

When I was a kid, Grandpa Ludwig encouraged me to try the Duck with Orange Sauce at the sort of quasi-Continental restaurant in Dumont where we ate for occasional celebratory meals. That was a portentous day. After that, I ate duck in Chinese places. French places. Oddly, perhaps, German places. At home. Wherever I could get it. Because duck was absolutely smeggin’ delicious.

For my entire adult life, I’ve cooked a duck on the day we do my birthday. This is usually the weekend following the actual date. A tradition handed down from the Ludwig household, where we could barely keep our personalities intact on weekday evenings, much less add in a ritual requiring cake, presents, etc. 

There is nothing simpler or more delicious as a birthday meal than roast poultry with garlic and herbs. Here goes.

Don’t brine your birds. I can’t emphasize this enough. Do NOT brine your birds. Brining renders the product wet and slimy. NOT, as the food network and other commentators would have you believe, moist and juicy. Maybe it’s a fine line, but I don’t think so. Do not brine your birds.

Instead, cook them for a long time at very low temperature. If you have a convection oven, so much the better. But even if you don’t, low and slow will give you fabulously moist, richly flavored, elegantly textured meat. That is not wet and slimy. 

Basic birthday poultry ingredients.

Garlic and rosemary. With some salt and

coarsely ground black pepper, you are 

more than good to go. Stuff each bird’s 

cavity with a sprig of poultry, a couple crushed

garlic cloves, and a palmful of salt and pepper. A 

little olive oil. 

Oh, and a spritz of balsamic vinegar. The over the 

counter version at Trader Joe’s is a particularly 

good product.

Remember to start cooking the birds on their breasts, not their backs. This assures that the breast meat gains moisture and flavor during the first couple of hours. Turn them over halfway through the cooking time. Which will be anywhere from 3 to 5 hours at an oven temperature of 275 to 300 Fahrenheit. 

If you include quail from the Oriental 

mega-mart in the pan with your duck and

chicken (the latter for the non-duck people

in the audience), they will finish cooking way 

before the larger species (note this meal 

incorporates 3 bird species of 2 families, chickens 

and quail both being Galliformes).

Chicken and duck ready to carve. 

The poultry will throw off an enormous volume of 

fat. Use this to sauté the short-grain rice you will serve

as an accompaniment. 

Which rice you will cook with tons of finely minced 

lemon rind, plus salt and pepper, in chicken broth.

Append a simple salad, and you’ve got a meal that 

is stunningly delicious, incredibly simple, and perfect 

for a birthday…or any other…celebration.

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