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Stuffing No. 1 for Duck
1/2 lb. onions 1 duck liver 1 cupful grated bread crumbs 1 teaspoon sage 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper Mince, blanch and drain the onions; parboil the liver and chop very fine; combine with the onions, bread crumbs and seasonings. This quantity is sufficient for one medium sized duck.
A plain sage-and-onion stuffing built around the bird's own liver. The proportions are sound; the technique is where a modern cook will want guidance.
- Blanching the onions"Mince, blanch and drain" means chopping the onions fine, dropping them into boiling water for two or three minutes, then draining well. It takes the raw bite out without browning them. Squeeze out excess water or the stuffing will be sodden.
- The liverParboil means a few minutes in simmering water until firm enough to chop cleanly, not cooked through. If the duck came without its liver, a chicken liver substitutes without complaint.
- Bread crumbsGrated crumbs here are dry crumbs from stale bread, not fresh soft crumbs and not the sandy commercial kind. A cupful of dry crumbs is roughly 4 oz; fresh crumbs weigh far less, so use a little more by volume if that is what you have.
- SageThe teaspoon is most likely dried sage, though the book does not say which form. If rubbed, a teaspoon is about right; ground sage is more concentrated and half a teaspoon is closer to the mark. Fresh sage, chopped, wants about a tablespoon.
- BindingAs written the mixture has no fat or egg and will be crumbly. A tablespoon of butter or rendered duck fat, or a beaten egg, holds it together if you want to serve it in slices rather than spooned.
- Cooking itStuffing inside the cavity of a duck must reach 165F at the centre, which on a fatty bird usually lags well behind the meat. Baking it separately in a covered dish at 350F for about 30 minutes gives a more predictable result.
- YieldEnough for one "medium sized duck", as the original says; it makes about 2 cups. Doubling is straightforward.
Sage and onion is a long-standing English answer to rich poultry, and the pairing rests on ordinary kitchen logic: the onion sweetens as it cooks and the sage cuts fat, which duck has in quantity. What marks this version as a period piece is the liver. In a household that bought or shot whole birds, the liver arrived with the duck and went straight into the stuffing rather than being sold separately or discarded.