Ducks
Two chopped onions, two cups mashed potatoes, one cup bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and powdered sage to taste.
This is an ingredient list rather than a method — typical of the terse stuffing entries in bridal cookbooks, which assumed the cook already knew what to do with them. The quantities suit one duck of about 5 lb, with a little left over.
- Soften the onions firstTwo chopped onions is a good deal of raw onion, and it will not cook through inside a duck in the time the bird needs; the stuffing will taste harsh. Sweat them in a little butter or duck fat until translucent before mixing.
- Bread crumbsA period cook would most likely have meant dry crumbs from stale bread, not the sandy commercial kind. With mashed potato already in the mix, dry crumbs are what you want — fresh soft crumbs make the stuffing pasty.
- Potato-based stuffing is denseMashed potato binds far more tightly than a bread stuffing, so pack it loosely and expect it to steam rather than crisp. If it seems stiff, loosen with a few spoonfuls of stock.
- Sage measure"To taste" with powdered sage is a trap, since dried ground sage is much stronger than the rubbed leaf. Start with a scant teaspoon for this quantity and add more after tasting a spoonful of the fried mixture.
- SaltMashed potatoes made for the table are usually salted already. Season the finished mixture, not the components, or the stuffing will be too salty against a rich bird.
- If you stuff the birdStuffing inside a duck must reach 165F at its centre, which often means the breast overcooks waiting for it. Baking the stuffing separately in a buttered dish at 375F for 30 to 40 minutes, moistened with a little of the pan fat, gives better results with both.
- YieldFour to five cups, depending on the size of the onions — enough for one duck with a cupful or so spare, or enough to serve six as a side dish baked on its own.
Potato stuffing for duck and goose is a northern European habit — Irish and German kitchens in particular use it — and it travelled into American household cookery with those immigrants. The logic is practical: duck and goose render a great deal of fat, and starchy potato absorbs it where a lighter bread crumb stuffing would turn greasy. Sage is a common partner to the strong-tasting domestic birds in English-language cookbooks of this period, appearing in many duck, goose and pork dressings. Compilations of this kind often printed bare lists without instructions, apparently assuming the reader already knew the method and needed only the proportions.