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Wild Duck, Fillets of, with Olives or Celery
Roast three or four wild ducks, and cut off the fillets according to the recipe already given. Score the skin, dish the fillets in a circle, and put into the centre either some stewed celery (see CELERY, STEWED) or some stoned olives. Send clear brown gravy to table in a tureen, and serve. Time to roast the ducks, ten to fifteen minutes. Probable cost, 4s. to 5s. per pair. Sufficient for a dish.
A composed game dish that assumes you have already read the entry on carving roast wild duck. The whole thing turns on very short, very hot roasting.
- Fillets means breastsThe "fillets" are the two breast muscles, lifted whole off the carcass along the breastbone. Three or four birds give six to eight fillets; the recipe itself says only that the dish is "sufficient for a dish" and names no number of diners. The legs and carcasses can go into stock rather than onto the dish.
- Ten to fifteen minutes means a hot ovenA roast that short implies a very hot oven, in modern terms somewhere in the region of 450F, though the recipe gives no oven description of any kind. Wild duck breast is generally served pink, since the lean dark meat of a wild bird turns dry and livery when taken well past medium.
- Rest before carvingThe recipe moves straight from roasting to cutting, but the fillets need eight to ten minutes off the heat before they are lifted, or the juices run out into the dish and the circle sits in a pink pool.
- Score the skinShallow diagonal cuts through the skin only, made after roasting, are for appearance in the circle. Do not cut into the meat.
- Substituting the birdWild mallard or teal from a game dealer is the intended thing and is considerably leaner and stronger-tasting than a farmed duck. A farmed duck breast can stand in but carries far more fat under the skin, so it wants scoring and rendering skin-side down in a pan before finishing in the oven, and it will not need the full four birds.
- Stoned olivesStoned is pitted. Use a firm green olive in brine, drained and rinsed; modern flavoured or oil-cured olives will overwhelm the gravy.
- Clear brown gravyNot a thickened flour gravy. Reduce game or beef stock with the roasting juices and any deglazing wine until it coats a spoon lightly, then strain and send it hot in a jug so the fillets are not sauced on the plate.
- The cost noteFour to five shillings a pair is a Victorian market price and is no guide to anything today.
Cassell's belongs to a period when wild duck was a seasonal dealer's item in British towns, hung in the game shop from autumn through winter alongside snipe, widgeon and teal, and cooked on the understanding that it was nothing like the fat table duck of the poultry yard. The dish here is really a piece of Victorian dining-room arrangement rather than a new preparation: the birds are roasted and carved by an earlier entry in the book, and the recipe's contribution is the ring of fillets with a filling at the centre and the sauce sent separately in a tureen. Olives with duck reflects a long-standing pairing in French cookery, where the salt and slight bitterness cut rich dark waterfowl; the alternative of stewed celery is the more thoroughly English option, celery being a winter vegetable available at exactly the same season as the ducks. The heavy cross-referencing is characteristic of the book, which was built as a dictionary and expects the reader to follow the capitalised entries rather than repeat itself.