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WILD DUCK (American fashion)
Pluck and draw the ducks, wipe the inside with a cloth, and sprinkle salt and pepper over them inside and out. Fill them with crumb of bread which has been thickly buttered and soaked in hot water till quite soft. Truss them securely, put them down to a clear fire, and baste them for ten minutes with half a pint of slightly-salted water in which a sliced onion has been soaked. This is to remove the unpleasant fishy flavour from the birds. When it has been used, throw the onion water away, and in its place put half a pint of hot water. Baste the birds with a little butter, dredge flour over them, and baste with the water in the pan. When they are done enough, take them up, and serve with gravy which has been made by stewing the giblets, then straining the liquor, thickening it with brown thickening, and stirring into it a table-spoonful of black currant jelly, a glassful of port, and a little salt and cayenne. Time to roast the ducks, twenty to thirty minutes.
A spit-roasting recipe written for a birds-in-front-of-the-fire kitchen, with two features modern cooks rarely see: a basting liquid meant to be thrown away, and a stuffing that is there to absorb flavour rather than to be eaten.
- Do not cook it past pinkTwenty to thirty minutes is right only for very hot cooking and a rare breast. Wild duck has almost no intramuscular fat; at an internal breast temperature much beyond 135F it turns dry and livery. Roast at 450F and pull the birds when the thickest part of the breast reads 130-135F, then rest 10 minutes.
- "Down to a clear fire"A clear fire is one burnt down past smoke and flame to steady radiant heat, with the bird turning on a spit and a pan beneath catching the drippings. The nearest oven equivalent is 450F on a rack over a shallow pan, which also lets you baste from the pan as directed.
- Half a pintIn this book that is the imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz, or about 1 1/4 US cups. Two lots are called for: the onion water, then plain hot water.
- The onion-water bastingFishiness is a real problem in diving and sea ducks -- mergansers, scoters, some scaup -- which feed on fish and shellfish. Mallard, teal and pintail off grain and weed do not need it. If your birds are fish-eaters, this treatment may help a little; a milk or brine soak before cooking is the remedy more usually recommended.
- The bread stuffing is a sponge, not a side dishThe bread stuffing may not be intended as a side dish -- buttered crumb soaked soft in hot water would absorb strong flavours from the cavity, though the recipe gives no reason for it and does not say whether to eat it or throw it out. Nothing is lost by leaving it out and putting a halved onion and an orange quarter in the cavity instead.
- Brown thickeningA Victorian standby: flour cooked in butter until nut-brown, kept in a jar and whisked into stock as needed. Use a dark roux, or simply reduce the strained giblet stock and finish it with a little beurre manié.
- The gravyA glass of port here means roughly 2-3 fl oz. Add the port to the giblet stock and let it reduce before the jelly goes in, or the sauce tastes raw and spirituous. Blackcurrant jelly is still sold; redcurrant is the usual substitute.
- ShotRun your fingers over the breast and through the cavity before stuffing. Pellets are common in shot birds and hard on teeth, and any badly damaged, blood-shot flesh is best trimmed away.
- YieldThe recipe does not say how many birds are meant. A mallard-sized wild duck serves one generously or two modestly; teal are a bird per person.
Cassell's habit of labelling dishes by nation is looser than it looks. American sporting cookery of the period was obsessed with the difference between a duck fattened on wild celery and one fattened on shellfish, and English writers picked up the remedies along with the reputation. The port-and-currant-jelly gravy, by contrast, is thoroughly British and was the standard accompaniment to any dark game bird in the nineteenth century. Wild duck was genuinely cheap food then, sold by market gunners in quantities that later game laws made impossible.