Muscovy meat is really good ... cooked wrong.

We have eaten Muscovy (a tropical bird that looks like a large duck but has claws and nests in trees, and some genetics people say is closer to a turkey than a duck.)

We had heard that their meat was really good. Some people say the breast meat tastes like veal.

We have tried several recipes and while it was 'ok' it was no better than Turkey, and more work per pound/KG of meat than a turkey. So we stopped raising them.

This week, my oldest daughter pulled out the last Muscovy and cooked it.After I took a taste and commented that this was wonderful - and said that, having tasted this one, I finally understood why people raved about Muscovy and said it tasted like veal.

I asked her "What did you do different this time?"

She told me she accidentally cooked it at 475 for 1 hour instead of 375 for 2 hours.

The skin was very tasty and crisp (previous ones, cooked at 375, were tough and not desirable for eating), and the breast meat had a wonderful, easy to slice texture with lots of flavor.

The seasoning was a salt, pepper and garlic rub right at the beginning, and after half an hour, she added some butter with more salt, pepper and garlic, to keep the skin crispy and to keep the flavor.

Now we are going to have to raise Muscovy again!

The legs were reported as good, but my oldest daughter in the 2nd set (7 yrs old in 2019) liked them so much that they were both eaten before I got home. The breast meat was liked by everyone that likes chicken, turkey and steak. The wings weren't very good and the small amounts of other meat were just 'average', ok, but nothing to write about.