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Broiled Canvas-back Duck
After the duck has been dressed, singed, and wiped thoroughly, split it through the back, but without completely separating the pieces. Season with 1 saltspoonful of salt, and 1/2 saltspoonful of pepper, and roll the duck well in 1 tablespoonful of olive-oil.
Broil for ten minutes on each side, or longer if liked well done. Place it on a hot dish and cover with 1/2 gill of maitre d'hotel butter sauce, add a bunch of watercress for decoration, and serve very hot.
Ruddy ducks are cooked in the same way; melted butter may be substituted for the oil.
A spatchcocked wild duck cooked fast and served rare — the method still works, but the bird itself is now a hunter's item rather than a purchase.
- Sourcing the birdCanvasback and ruddy duck are migratory waterfowl that may be taken only by licensed hunters within regulated seasons and bag limits; they cannot legally be bought or sold in the United States. A farmed Pekin or a Muscovy duck is the practical substitute, though both are far fatter and will drip and flare under a broiler.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. The seasoning here is deliberately light, on the assumption that the sauce carries the salt.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is four tablespoons — a generous amount of compound butter melting over a single bird.
- Maitre d'hotel butterButter creamed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then chilled. It is not a cooked sauce; it is meant to melt on contact with the hot duck, so keep it cold until the moment of serving.
- "Dressed and singed"Plucked and drawn, then passed over a flame to burn off the down and hair that survive plucking. Wild birds also need careful checking for shot and for remaining pinfeathers along the breast.
- Ten minutes a sideThat timing suits a preheated broiler with the bird a few inches from the element, and it produces a rare breast, which is how wild diving ducks were generally eaten in this period. Wild duck breast cooked much past about 135F tends to turn liver-like and dry; farmed duck is usually taken to 165F in the thigh instead.
- Splitting the backCutting through the backbone without separating the halves lets the bird lie flat so both sides meet the heat evenly. Press it down with a weighted plate or a second pan for the first few minutes to stop it curling.
- YieldA canvasback dresses out at roughly a pound and a half to two pounds and serves two at most; a whole farmed duck of five pounds will serve three or four.
The canvasback was among the most sought-after game birds in nineteenth-century America, and the reason was diet: birds wintering on the Chesapeake and the Susquehanna flats fed heavily on wild celery, which was said to give the flesh a distinctive nutty sweetness. Hotel and steamboat menus of the 1870s and 1880s listed canvasback at prices well above any other duck, commonly roasted or broiled rare and served with hominy and currant jelly. The ruddy duck offered here as a substitute was a cheaper market bird from the same waters. Commercial market hunting collapsed those populations, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 ended the sale of wild waterfowl in the United States — which is why a recipe that once assumed a poulterer's counter now assumes a hunting license.