Duck, Wild, Roast
INGREDIENTS. - Wild duck, flour, butter. AVERAGE COST, 4s. to 5s. a brace.
Carefully pluck and draw them; cut off the heads close to the necks, leaving sufficient skin to turn over, and do not cut off the feet: some twist each leg at the WILD DUCK. knuckle, and rest the claws on each side of the breast; others truss them as shown in our illustration. Roast the birds before a quick fire, and, when they are first put down, let them remain for 5 minutes without basting (this will keep the gravy in); afterwards baste plentifully with butter, and a few minutes before serving, DUCK, WILD, TO CARVE. dredge them lightly with flour; baste well, and send them to table nicely frothed, and full of gravy. If overdone, the birds will lose their flavour. Serve with a good gravy in the dish, or orange gravy, and send to table with them a cut lemon. To take off the fishy taste which wild fowl sometimes have, baste them for a few minutes with hot water to which have been added an onion and a little salt; then take away the pan, and baste with butter.
TIME. When liked underdressed, 20 to 25 minutes; well done, 25 to 35 minutes.
SEASONABLE from November to February.
A spit-roasting recipe written for an open fire, and the timings assume that fierce, direct heat. Translated to an oven it needs the hottest setting you have and a very close eye.
- The hinge: do not overcookBeeton's warning that "if overdone, the birds will lose their flavour" is the whole recipe. Wild duck has almost no fat and the breast turns liver-dry and metallic past medium-rare; pull the bird at 125-130F in the thickest part of the breast and rest it 10 minutes.
- "A quick fire" in an ovenThe original gives no temperature, only an open fire; a very hot oven, around 450F, is the usual modern equivalent. The 20-35 minutes assumes radiant heat from the front and constant basting; in a conventional oven a mallard will often be done in 18-25 minutes, a teal in 10-12. Go by internal temperature, not the clock.
- Which duck"Wild duck" here almost certainly means mallard, which dresses out at roughly 2-2.5 lb, though the book does not say so. Teal and widgeon are considerably smaller and cook in much less time. Farmed duck is a different proposition altogether: far fattier, and it wants a lower oven and a longer roast.
- Plucking, drawing and shotFew readers now start with a feathered bird. If you do get one from a shoot, check the flesh for lead pellets before roasting and again before carving. The feet-on trussing Beeton describes is presentation for a Victorian table and can be skipped.
- "Nicely frothed"The flour dredge followed by a final basting was meant to raise a light crisp foam on the skin. It works, but only if the fat is genuinely hot; a limp dredge just tastes of raw flour. Dust sparingly at the very end.
- The hot-water bastingA traditional remedy against a "fishy" taste, and there is a plausible basis for it: diving ducks and coastal birds can carry a strong marine flavour from their diet, and basting with salted onion water was held to draw some of it off. Discard that pan entirely before switching to butter, as the recipe directs, or the water will stop the skin browning.
- Orange gravyBeeton gives a separate recipe for an orange gravy for wildfowl: stock sharpened with orange and lemon juice and port. If you are using ordinary sweet oranges rather than bitter Seville ones, add lemon to compensate.
- YieldOne mallard serves two at most, and one generously; teal are a bird per person. The "4s. to 5s. a brace" price is Victorian and not directly comparable to modern costs.
Wild duck sat in the British shooting calendar, and Beeton's "seasonable from November to February" reflects the months when the birds were taken and were in best condition after autumn feeding. Fast roasting and rare serving is what this recipe describes, though Beeton herself offers both: "when liked underdressed, 20 to 25 minutes; well done, 25 to 35 minutes". The pairing of wildfowl with orange and lemon is older than this book and is usually traced to the bitter Seville orange sauces of French cookery, where acidity cut the richness and the occasional muddy tang of waterfowl. The hot-water basting against a "fishy taste" is a piece of practical kitchen lore of the kind that recurs in nineteenth-century manuals.