As some of you know, my husband Colton is the cook of our household. He absolutely loves the process of playing with ingredients and adding flavor with exotic spices. On the other hand, there’s me. I can follow a recipe, but I’m not good at experimenting with flavors like Colton is. I stick to the strict recipes of baking. It’s more my speed!

Today, I’m sharing Colton’s recipe for his shotgun duck sandwich. He was on vacation while I was at work the week after Christmas when he sent me a surprisingly Instagram-worthy photo of his sandwich masterpiece and he was so proud of what he had created. It was honestly so cute!

He wanted to call the sandwich a “shotgun” duck sandwich in honor of his other great passion: duck hunting. He comes home every year with fresh duck breasts to use and experiment with in the kitchen. To help him create some tasty dishes with his prizes, I gave him the MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook by Steven Rinella for Christmas and he loves it! But today’s recipe is his own original creation so let’s get to it.

Ingredients

• 2 wild duck breasts (There are 3 in our photos but we ended up with leftover meat)
• 1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 4 jalapeños
• 6 strips of bacon
• Cream cheese
• 2 pieces of sliced bread
• Choice of shredded cheese
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp oregano
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Bacon grease (sub vegetable oil)
• Butter

How To Prepare the Sandwich

1. Fry bacon in skillet. Save the grease.
2. Thinly slice red bell pepper and onion.
3. Cut jalapeños in half lengthways and core out the seeds.
4. Once you’ve accumulated the bacon grease, use it to start cooking your vegetables on medium to low heat. You want them soft (jalapeños can stay firm).
5. As the vegetables are slowly cooking, cut the duck breasts into thirds so they will cook thoroughly. See marked photos below for how to slice.
6. Season duck breast slices with garlic powder, thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper.
7. Cook duck breast slices in leftover bacon over medium heat for 5-15 minutes. Cook time will vary depending on breast thickness. Note: It is cooked when only a little pink remains on the inside.
8. As duck cooks, stuff jalapeño slices with cream cheese.
9. Prepare the sandwich by adding elements in the following order: bacon, jalapeños, peppers, onions, and shredded cheese.
10. After duck is thoroughly cooked, cut it lengthways into strips and add to sandwich.
11. Add butter to outside of bread on the sandwich and cook in a skillet on medium to high heat until the bread is golden brown.