Home › To Cook Game › One Duck
One Duck
Two pounds of breast of Beef.
Three pints of good Stock.
A Shred into pieces of the same length and size one beetroot, leek, celery root, parsley and an onion; add to it a little curled cabbage cut in the same way, and fry the whole in a moderate-sized saucepan. When all is a good light colour stir in the stock, and a soup ladle of sour beetroot juice.
Then add a young duck which has been three parts roasted beforehand, about two pounds of breast of beef which has been slightly broiled beforehand, and a bunch of herbs composed of marjoram, two or three dry mushrooms, a bayleaf, and a clove. Let all boil gently until the duck and beef are entirely cooked, then take them out of the soup, cut up the duck in the usual manner and cut the beef also into large dice. Then take out the bunch of herbs, skim the soup and flavour it well. Mix the juice of two red and wellscraped beetroots and a good pinch of chopped and slightly boiled fennel and parsley and add to the soup. Sour cream should be handed with the soup. When the soup is served, add to it the pieces of duck and beef.
Cabillaud à la Provençale. (Braised Cod.) Ingredients.
About two and a half pounds of Codfish (middle cut). Half a pint of Velouté Sauce.
One gill of White Wine.
Two small Shalots (chopped fine).
Two ounces of Butter.
This is a duck borscht, printed without a proper title and running straight into the opening of the next recipe. Read the last five lines — codfish, velouté, white wine, shallots, butter — as the ingredient list for Cabillaud à la Provençale and ignore them here.
- The hinge: raw beet juice goes in lastThe pressed juice of two raw ("well-scraped") beetroots is stirred in after the soup has been skimmed and flavoured. Beetroot pigment fades to brown-purple when heated hard, so this late addition is what keeps the colour red; the recipe does not say to draw the pot off the heat, but boiling on after this point would undo it.
- Sour beetroot juiceThe soup ladle of "sour beetroot juice" is beet kvas — grated raw beets covered with water and left to ferment several days until sharp. Bottled beet kvas is sold in Eastern European groceries. Failing that, an equal quantity of beet juice with red wine vinegar or lemon juice to taste gives the sourness, though not the fermented depth.
- Quantities as writtenTwo pounds of breast of beef is called for twice, at the head and again in the method. The header list omits the duck altogether, so this is most likely one and the same piece, broiled to colour it before it goes into the pot; buy 2 lb once. Brisket or short rib both work.
- Three pints of stockAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so three pints is about 7 1/2 cups. Expect to top it up during the long simmer, as the duck and beef will need to stay covered.
- "Three parts roasted"Roast the duck to about three-quarters done before it finishes in the soup; the recipe gives no oven temperature or time, so judge it by eye. Pour off the rendered fat before it goes in, or the broth will be greasy beyond skimming.
- Simmering timeBeef brisket wants 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a bare simmer. The duck will be done well before that, so lift it out when the legs give and return the meat only at service, or it will shred to nothing.
- The vegetablesBeetroot, leek, celeriac ("celery root", not stalks), onion and curly cabbage, all cut in matchsticks of even length; the "parsley" in this first list is probably parsley root, since it is shredded with the other roots, though the text does not say so. Fry in butter or duck fat only until light gold — colouring them further muddies the broth.
- Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no yield; three pints of stock with the duck and beef will stretch to about six as a main course. Sour cream is passed separately rather than stirred in, and the carved duck and diced beef are added at the last moment, as the text directs.
This is borscht in its older, grander form: not a purée but a clear sour broth with meat served in it, thinned at the last with raw beet juice and finished at table with sour cream. The sourness came from kvas buraczany, fermented beet liquid kept as a household staple across Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Duck and beef together mark this out as a festive version, and its appearance in a professional manual reflects the period's appetite for Russian and Polish dishes on English and hotel menus — the same fashion that gave dining rooms service à la russe, caviare and bortsch as a legitimate first course. The garbled heading and the way the text runs into the following cod recipe are typical of the compressed, closely set printing of these trade recipe collections, which were written for cooks who already knew what a borscht was.