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Duck, Gravy For
Boil the giblets (omitting the liver) in a pint of water for an hour, adding to them a small onion chopped, and salt and pepper to taste. Strain, colour with a little browning, and stir up with a tea-spoonful of soy, and the same of mushroom ketchup. Or, good stock lightly mixed with browned flour may be used instead of water for boiling the giblets: and the addition of a little red wine will increase the richness of the gravy.
A giblet gravy of the plainest Victorian type: an hour's simmering, a strain, and three bottled seasonings to give it colour and depth. Two of those seasonings mean something slightly different now than they did then.
- Why the liver comes outDuck liver simmered for an hour turns gritty and bitter and clouds the stock. Keep the neck, gizzard and heart for the pot; fry the liver separately or save it for a pâté.
- "Browning"A commercial or homemade caramel colouring — sugar cooked until dark and bitter, then let down with water. Modern gravy browning does the same job. It contributes colour and a faint bitterness, not sweetness, so add it a few drops at a time.
- "Soy"In nineteenth-century British kitchens soy meant a thick, dark, sweetish imported soy sauce sold as a table condiment. A dark or light soy will work; a teaspoon in a pint of gravy is for savour and depth rather than a soy flavour.
- Mushroom ketchupSalted mushroom liquor, dark and thin, still sold by a few makers and easy enough to find. Worcestershire sauce is the nearest common substitute, though it is sharper and more spiced, so use slightly less.
- Salt at the endBoth the soy and the mushroom ketchup are very salty, and the pint reduces over the hour. Season the giblet liquor only lightly at the start and correct after the seasonings go in.
- The browned-flour versionFlour toasted dry in a pan until nut-brown thickens far less than raw flour — the starch is partly broken down — so expect a gravy that coats rather than sets. Whisk it into a little cold stock before it joins the pot to avoid lumps.
- The wine"a little red wine" would most plainly mean an ordinary claret. The recipe gives no quantity; a tablespoon or two, added after straining and simmered a minute to drive off the raw edge, suits a gravy this delicate, and more will dominate it.
- YieldExpect some reduction over an hour's simmering, so the finished gravy will be noticeably less than the pint of water it started from, enough for a small roast duck. Skim the fat that rises before straining, or leave a little for gloss.
The logic of the entry is thrift: a roasting duck came with its neck, gizzard, heart and liver, and the gravy was the household's way of using them. Browning, soy and mushroom ketchup were all common Victorian bottled seasonings for making a pale stock look and taste like something richer, and a reasonably well-stocked middle-class kitchen might keep all three to hand — though browning was as often made at home as bought. Soy sauce had been imported into Britain since the late seventeenth century and by the 1800s was a familiar store-cupboard condiment rather than an exotic one; mushroom ketchup, older than the tomato version, was among the standard English "ketchups" of the period. The alternative given at the end — good stock and a little red wine instead of water — is the same gravy enriched for a household that could afford it.