Ducks, Roast
INGREDIENTS.---A couple of ducks; sage-and-onion stuffing; a little flour. AVERAGE COST, 5s. to 7s. per pair.
This is Beeton's shorthand entry: ingredients and market price, with the method assumed known. Here is what a modern cook needs to fill in.
- Aylesbury ducksA white-plumaged, pink-billed Buckinghamshire breed, now rare and almost never sold as such. Any table duck of 4-5 lb dressed weight stands in; supermarket ducks are usually Pekin or Pekin crosses.
- "A couple" means twoTwo ducks of that size serve roughly six to eight. One duck feeds about three, since the carcass is large in proportion to its meat.
- The costFive to seven shillings a pair was a substantial outlay for a Victorian household, comparable to something like a day's wages for a skilled worker. It marks roast duck as a company dish rather than everyday food.
- Sage-and-onion stuffingFor two birds, about 2 large onions, parboiled and chopped, 4 oz breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons chopped sage, 2 oz butter, salt and pepper. Beeton's own sage-and-onion stuffing is of this type, bound with an egg.
- OvenA Victorian roast was done before a fire; in an oven, start at 425F to set and colour the skin, then drop to 350F. Allow roughly 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes, and check that juices from the thigh run clear.
- The flourThe "little flour" is for dredging the bird, which helps the skin brown and crisp; such dredging was done before or during roasting. Modern practice is also to prick the skin over the breast and legs first so the heavy subcutaneous fat renders out rather than steaming the skin from beneath.
- The fatTwo ducks will throw off a great deal of fat. Pour it off during roasting and keep it; it is the single most useful by-product of the dish.
- To serveTraditionally with apple sauce, green peas, and a thin gravy made from the giblets rather than the roasting fat. Rest the birds 15 minutes before carving.
The Aylesbury was the great English table duck of the nineteenth century, raised in and around the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, where cottage "duckers" fattened birds in yards and back rooms and sent them to London markets by cart and later by rail. Its white feathers were themselves a commodity, sold for bedding, and the breed's pale skin was prized on the table. Beeton names it here as a mark of quality much as a modern book might name a breed of chicken. The Aylesbury trade declined after the arrival of the Pekin duck from China in the 1870s, which grew faster and was widely crossed in; purebred Aylesburys are now a rare breed, and most ducks sold as "Aylesbury" in Britain today are only descended from the type. Sage and onion as the standard stuffing for duck and goose is older than the book, and is well attested from the eighteenth century onwards.