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Duck Smothered with Turnips
I YOUNG DUCK, JOINTED 2 TABLESPOONS BUTTER 11/2 POUNDS NEW I TURNIPS SALT AND PEPPER I TABLESPOON POULTRY SEASONING I ONION, CHOPPED 1/8 TEASPOON GROUND BOILING WATER CLOVES Lightly brown pieces of duck in butter. Peel turnips and slice thin, parboil 5 minutes in salted boiling water and drain. Arrange layer of turnips in bottom of earthenware pot or deep baking dish, and arrange pieces of duck on top scattering seasonings, poultry seasoning, onion, ground cloves and turnip slices among the pieces. Cover with a layer of turnip slices, add 1 cup boiling water, then seal cover on pot with flour and water paste. Bake in preheated hole 2 hours or longer.
A bean-hole dish: the sealed pot goes into a pit of hardwood coals and cooks by stored heat. It adapts directly to a low oven, and the flour-paste seal does the same job in both.
- The seal is the pointThe flour-and-water luting paste traps every bit of steam, which is what makes the duck tender and the turnips absorb the fat. A tight-fitting lid plus a doubled sheet of foil crimped hard over the rim does the same thing; a loose lid will leave the dish dry.
- Bean hole to ovenA pit burned down to coals and closed holds a moderate heat that falls slowly over hours; no fixed temperature can be claimed for it. A 300F oven and the recipe's 2 hours or a little longer suits a young duck.
- Earthenware and thermal shockCold stoneware can crack if set straight into a hot oven; if the pot goes in cold, let it come up with the oven rather than into a preheated one, or use a cast-iron Dutch oven.
- New turnips"New" turnips means small, young, thin-skinned roots, not the large waxed swedes sold as turnips in much of the produce aisle. If only large ones are available, peel deeply and slice thin as directed; the parboil matters more, since older roots are sharper.
- Poultry seasoningA full tablespoon of commercial poultry seasoning is heavy by current taste; two teaspoons is closer to the intended effect.
- Brown, then drainA duck renders a great deal of fat. Brown the joints in the butter, then pour off most of what collects before layering, or the finished dish sits in grease rather than in the small amount of liquid the recipe calls for.
- DonenessDuck legs and thighs want to go past the safe minimum of 165F to about 185-195F, where the connective tissue gives way. Breast pieces in a sealed pot will be well done; that is expected in this style of cooking.
- YieldOne young duck of 4-5 lb serves three, perhaps four with bread and the turnips counted as the vegetable.