Salmi of Duck
Save remnants of cold duck or other game, trim meat off neatly, set aside; place all the remains (bones, gravy, etc.) in a sauce-pan and cover with cold water; bring gently to a boil; skim, add an onion that has been cut up and fried brown (not burned); simmer gently for about an hour, then set the sauce-pan in a cool place long enough to allow the fat to rise and "settle on top;" skim this off carefully-it will be nice to fry potatoes with. Now return the sauce-pan to the fire, and when about to boil strain off the liquid; set on again, add salt and skim. If the liquid looks cloudy, let it boil up, throw in a little cold water, and the scum will rise. Now put in the pepper and such spice as may be desired, also a bunch. of herbs tied up in a piece of muslin, or very finely powdered. Take a large spoon of flour that has been baked in the oven and kept for gravy, mix it well with a lump of butter same size, put this and the meat all in together and stir well until it is just ready to boil again, but see that it does not boil; cover closely and set back where it may keep very hot without cooking. The safest plan is to put the sauce-pan in a vessel of hot water for ten or fifteen minutes.
A leftovers dish built on a quick game stock, with the sliced meat warmed through at the end rather than cooked again. Everything hinges on that last step.
- Never let it boil at the endOnce the sliced duck goes back in, the sauce must stay just below a simmer. Boiling already-cooked game meat in a thin sauce shreds it and makes it stringy; the hot-water bath the recipe recommends is the reliable way to hold it at serving heat.
- Baked flour for gravyNineteenth-century kitchens kept a jar of flour browned in the oven so gravies could be thickened without a raw taste and with darker colour. If you have none, cook the flour and butter together as a roux until it smells nutty and browns; a deep copper colour will take rather longer than the few minutes needed for a pale one.
- "A large spoon" and "a lump"The recipe pairs a large spoon of flour with a lump of butter of the same size, so equal amounts by volume. Beyond that the quantities are rough, so thicken to taste and expect a light, pourable sauce rather than a coating one.
- Clearing the stockAdding cold water checks the boil so that the scum rises and can be lifted off instead of being churned back in. It clarifies less thoroughly than an egg-white raft but is quicker; skim well or the sauce will taste muddy.
- The skimmed fatDuck fat lifted off chilled stock keeps a week or more refrigerated and is worth saving as the recipe says. It is excellent for potatoes, as advised.
- HerbsThe "bunch of herbs" would typically be something on the lines of parsley, thyme and bay. The recipe already directs you to tie them in muslin, or to use them very finely powdered.
- Timing and yieldAbout an hour for the stock plus reduction; the meat from one leftover duck serves two, three if stretched over toast, rice or mashed potato. Reduce the strained stock to concentrate flavour before thickening if it tastes thin.
- Wine, if you want itMany period salmi recipes finish with a glass of claret, madeira or port added before thickening. This version omits it, but it suits the dish and should go in early enough to lose its raw edge.
A salmi (French salmis) is a classic way of dealing with game that has already been roasted: the carcass is turned into stock, the stock into a dark sauce, and the carved meat reheated in it. In grand French kitchens it was sometimes finished at the table in a chafing dish, and the name is generally traced to the same root as salmigondis, a word for a hodgepodge or ragout. Its appearance in Buckeye Cookery (1877), an American household manual, shows how far the vocabulary of French cooking had travelled into ordinary kitchens by the 1870s, and also how central thrift was to those kitchens: this is a recipe whose whole purpose is that nothing from yesterday's duck goes to waste, down to the skimmed fat set aside for frying potatoes.