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To Boil and Truss Geese and Ducks
88. Geese and Ducks are sometimes boiled. They are then trussed as for roasting, and boiled in the same manner as turkeys, with or without a stuffing of sage and onions, and served with onion sauce and gravy. (Fig. 127.)
This is a method note rather than a full recipe: it assumes you already know how to truss a bird and how the book boils a turkey. The essentials of boiled goose and duck are worth spelling out, since almost nobody cooks them this way now.
- Never actually boil it"Boiled" poultry in this period generally meant simmering in barely moving water, the surface trembling rather than bubbling; in modern terms that is roughly 180-190F. A rolling boil shrinks and toughens the leg meat and clouds the broth with rendered fat.
- TimingThe recipe gives none. As a working guide, allow something like 15-25 minutes per pound for a duck of 4-5 lb and a little less per pound for a goose of 9-10 lb, then test rather than trust the clock. The thigh should read 175F and the joint should move freely; breast meat cooked this way will be pale and firm, not pink.
- TrussingTruss compactly with the legs drawn close and the wings pinned back, or the bird will splay in the pot and cook unevenly. Butcher's twine and a trussing needle do the job; some cooks wrap the bird in muslin so the skin does not tear when it is lifted out.
- The fatGoose and duck give up a great deal of fat into the water. Skim it off as it rises and keep it: it is the single best by-product of the dish, and it will otherwise make the cooking liquor greasy and unusable as gravy.
- Stuffing in a boiled birdSage and onion stuffing put inside a simmered bird stays wet and slack. If you want it, pack it loosely, allow extra time for the centre to reach 165F, or bake it separately in a dish and slice it alongside.
- Onion sauceThe period sauce is onions boiled soft, drained, chopped or sieved, and stirred into a white sauce made with butter, flour and milk, seasoned with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg or mace. The "gravy" beside it would be a plain brown gravy or the skimmed and reduced cooking liquor.
- YieldA duck of about 4 lb will serve two or three, at most four; a goose of 9-10 lb perhaps five or six, since goose yields little meat for its weight. The carcass and cooking liquor make a good soup the next day.
Boiling large poultry was a practical choice in a kitchen where the roasting spit and the open fire were in demand for other things, and where a pot could hang with little attention; it also suited older, tougher birds that would have dried out before a fire. Geese in particular were farmyard birds tied to the calendar in Britain, associated with Michaelmas and Christmas, and a household with a bird too large or too elderly for the spit might boil it instead. The pairing with onion sauce and sage-and-onion stuffing is a standard English seasoning for fatty poultry and pork, the sharpness of onion and the resin of sage cutting through rich meat. The entry itself is little more than a cross-reference to the turkey instructions, and assumes a reader who already has the technique and needs only to be told which sauce belongs with which bird.