Teal, Roast
INGREDIENTS. -Teal, butter, & little flour. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 3d. each. . 3d . each. has set in, as they are generally better Choose fat, plump birds, after the frost flavoured; truss them in the same manner as wild duck; roast them before a brish. brown or orange gravy, watercresses and fire, and keep them well basted. Serve with excellent hash, a cut lemon. The remains of teal make TIME.-From 9 to 15 minutes. INGREDIENTS.—Teal, butter, a little flour. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 3d. each.
SEASONABLE from October to February.
A spit-roasting recipe for the smallest of the British wild ducks, written for an open fire and needing translation for an oven. Teal are tiny and very lean, so the whole method turns on fierce heat and constant basting.
- Bird size and yieldA teal is the smallest of the ducks, on the order of 12 oz live and rather less drawn, against 2 lb or more for a mallard. Allow one whole bird per person; two if the rest of the meal is light.
- Fire to ovenRoasting "before a brisk fire" means high radiant heat on all sides. In an oven, use 425-450F. The 9-15 minutes given assumes a fire; in an oven a teal takes closer to 15-20 minutes, and the shorter end of any timing gives meat that is frankly rare.
- Basting and fatWild duck carries almost no fat and dries out in minutes. Baste with melted butter every few minutes, or lay a thin sheet of bacon or pork fat over the breast for the first two-thirds of the cooking and remove it to brown.
- The flourThe "little flour" is dredged over the breast towards the end of roasting, then basted again, to raise a crisp froth on the skin. It is a finish, not a coating.
- Trussing like wild duckWings folded back, legs pressed close to the body and secured, so the bird holds a compact shape over high heat. Modern cooks can simply tie the legs and tuck the wing tips.
- Orange gravyThe alternative to plain brown gravy is a bigarade-style sauce: pan juices with the juice and thin shredded rind of a bitter or sweet orange, a little stock and a squeeze of lemon. Orange sauces were a common partner to wild duck.
- ShotBirds bought from a game dealer may still carry pellets. Feel over the breast before cooking and warn anyone at the table.
- Cost and season'1s. 3d. each' is Victorian pricing and gives only a rough sense of what a teal cost. The October-to-February season broadly matches British wildfowling seasons; frost-fed birds were reckoned better flavoured, as the recipe itself says.
- The remainsThe recipe gives no method for the hash; it would be leftover meat cut down and reheated gently in the gravy. Do not reboil the meat or it goes to threads.
Teal is the smallest duck shot in Britain, and Victorian cookery books treat it as the most delicate of the wildfowl: mallard was robust, widgeon in between, teal something close to a luxury single portion. The insistence on birds taken "after the frost has set in" reflects a real belief among wildfowlers that cold weather drives ducks off brackish feeding grounds and onto grain and freshwater weed, improving the flavour; fish-fed birds from the coast were reckoned rank. Mrs Beeton's book, in its many expanded editions, carried a long run of game entries because a middle-class household of the period expected to receive birds as gifts from country relations or to buy them cheaply in season from a poulterer, and needed to know what to do with a creature no butcher had prepared for them. The watercress and cut lemon served alongside are the standard Victorian garnish for all roast wildfowl, meant to cut the richness of the dark meat.