Is it OK to eat duck medium-rare?
Unlike chicken, duck breast has a hue and texture akin to that of red meat and is safe to consume medium-rare, so bring on the pink. Perfectly cooked duck breast will have moist and juicy meat, with a luscious and crunchy skin.
Duck breast is best served medium rare and pink in the middle as overcooking can cause it to dry out.
While the USDA recommends cooking duck to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165° F (74° C) to avoid the potential risk of salmonella poisoning, restaurants often serve duck medium-rare. Since duck has dark meat and tight muscle fibers, these muscles are often cooked much like beef for tender results.
Ducks also have a much higher fat content than chickens, which makes them perfect for rare cooking. The high-fat content helps keep the meat moist and tender, even when cooked at lower temperatures. Duck [1] is also much more flavorful than chicken, which makes it enjoyable to eat even when cooked rare.
When tested with a thermometer at the thickest part of the duck (or chicken) the temperature should be 75 Deg C (165 Deg F). The difference is that duck is red meat and chicken is white meat. Therefore, the duck meat will still appear pink when cooked safely to this temperature.
Because if you cook duck too well it becomes chalky or tough. Like steak, duck has a lot of fat. The fat helps keep it safer to eat even if not cooked to well-done.
It isn't 100 percent safe to eat duck cooked to less than medium doneness, since it is possible for a duck to harbor bacteria, including salmonella, as with other poultry, Applegate says.
Duck meat is eaten raw, cooked or dried and is lower in fat (23%) compared to store bought chicken (40%). People enjoy duck meat for its juicy texture and taste. The liver, gizzard, heart and eggs are also eaten.
The difficulty is that duck meat, unlike chicken, may still appear red or deep pink even though it is safely cooked. The reasons for this vary as marinades or other additives suggested in duck recipes are generally stronger flavours and often more highly coloured than those suggested for chicken.
Why can duck be eaten rare but not chicken? It has to do with how it's raised and processed. Almost any wild meat can be eaten raw on the spot. But factory-farmed meat is best well-cleaned and cooked to reduce your exposure to the nasty bacteria that builds up in the environment.
Is duck a high risk food?
High-risk foods
Examples include: cooked meat and poultry such as: beef, pork, ham, lamb, chicken, turkey, duck.
Foodborne transmission of Salmonella spp. from contaminated duck meat has been recognised as an important hazard for human health in the past few decades and pathogenic strains of Salmonella spp. have long been considered as serious zoonotic hazards.

Why? Because like other poultry, ducks are susceptible to contamination with salmonella and campylobacter, regardless of whether it comes from a small or big farm or how it was de-feathered.
A perfectly cooked, pan-fried duck breast will have a crisp, golden skin and succulent pink flesh.
Duck can be sold in cuts, such as breasts, wings, or legs, or sold whole. A whole, raw duck will look much like a whole chicken, except with a more elongated body and muscular legs. The meat has a dark reddish color, similar to raw beef.
Salmonella food poisoning is normally something that people associate with undercooked chicken or eggs. But The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is reminding the public that eating some types of "pink" lamb or mutton can also pose a risk.
If you have a food thermometer, use it to measure the temperature of the thickest part of the bird, either the drumstick or the breast. For chicken, duck, or turkey, it's done when the thermometer reaches about 80°C / 175°F.
Ducks don't lend themselves well to the large-scale agricultural practices used to produce and process chicken or turkey. As a result, we just don't eat that much of their meat in this country. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) tallied 27 million ducks slaughtered in 2017.
For people with issues such as high cholesterol, or other diet-based restrictions, chicken is a go-to as it's generally easy on the stomach and is a much leaner meat. However, despite its higher fat content, duck has nutritional value. Healthy animal fat is necessary in most diets, and duck is rich in iron and copper.
Steak (Also: duck breast, lamb, veal chops and roasts)
If you want rare, or "black and blue" (seared on the outside and bright red on the inside), look for an internal temperature of 125-30 degrees Fahrenheit. Medium rare (pink inside and slightly red at center), cook to 130-140F.
How long do you cook duck for medium-rare?
For medium-rare meat, cook until breast registers 130°F (54°C) on an instant-read thermometer, about 1 to 2 minutes. Continue cooking until duck registers 140°F (60°C) for medium or 155°F (68°F) for well-done.
Basically identifying when duck is cooked is the same as for chicken: the internal temperature of the thickest part of duck should be 75° when tested with a meat thermometer, cook at the temperature and the time period recommended on the packaging or the juices run clear and no blood should be apparent.
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