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Braised Duck
Draw and clean a large duck, stuff the breast with bread or meat stuffing, and truss it. Put into a stewpan some slices of fat bacon or a little butter; when melted place the duck over it on its breast first, to give it a little color, then turn it over. When the back is slightly colored, surround the duck with whole vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes, etc.; add salt, pepper and seasoning, and a breakfast cupful of broth; simmer over the fire until the liquid has reduced to glaze, then add broth and white wine to reach to half the height of the duck, cover with thin slices of fat bacon, and braise it. When done, take out the duck and vegetables, and reduce the liquor to half-glaze. Untruss the duck and dish it; strain and skim the stock and thicken with a little brown sauce. Garnish the duck with vegetables, pour a little of the sauce over it, and serve the rest in a sauceboat. Braised Duck, Empress Style Prepare a duck by cutting off the wing and half of the breast; take off the skin, remove the bone from the wing and fill up its place with quenelle forcemeat. Lard the breast and put it into a braisingpan over slices of leeks, carrots, onions, a little parsley, thyme, chervil, bay leaves, and lemon peel. Pour over sufficient stock to prevent burning, set the pan on the fire and braise the half duck; then glaze it, put on a dish over a layer of cooked sea-kale, and serve with puree of beans for garnish.
Two versions of the same technique: a whole stuffed duck braised in its own glaze, and a boned half-duck plated in the grand-restaurant manner. The instructions assume a cook who already knows what "glaze" and "half-glaze" mean, so start there.
- Glaze and half-glaze"Reduced to glaze" means the liquid has cooked down to a syrupy film on the bottom of the pan that browns the meat and vegetables; that browning is where the sauce's flavor comes from, and stopping short of it gives a pale, thin result. "Half-glaze" is the lighter reduction of the two: the finishing liquor is taken only halfway to that syrup, so it coats a spoon but still pours.
- A breakfast cupfulRoughly 8 to 10 fl oz, the larger breakfast cup rather than a teacup. Precision does not matter here since the liquid is meant to disappear entirely.
- To braiseCover the pan and hold it at a bare simmer. The recipe works it over direct heat, though a low oven (around 325F) will do the same. A 5-lb duck needs about 1 1/2 to 2 hours from the point the wine and broth go in; the leg meat should pull easily from the bone.
- Duck size and fatA supermarket Pekin duck of 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 lb stands in for the "large duck." It renders a great deal of fat, so the added bacon or butter is only for the initial coloring, and the finished stock will need serious skimming.
- Whole vegetablesAdded at the start, carrots and potatoes will be very soft after two hours. Add carrots and onions early for the sauce, and put in potatoes or turned root vegetables for the garnish in the last 40 minutes.
- Brown sauceOscar means espagnole or a demi-glace. A tablespoon of beurre manie whisked into the reduced strained stock does the same job, though it will not add the roasted depth the original assumes.
- Quenelle forcemeatA fine puree of raw poultry or veal with egg white and cream, used here to rebuild the shape of the boned wing. Any smooth chicken mousseline works; it sets as the duck braises.
- Sea-kaleRarely sold in the United States now. Braised leeks, blanched cardoon, or white asparagus give the same mild, slightly bitter bed under the meat.
- YieldOne whole braised duck with vegetables serves three to four. The Empress version, being half a bird, serves two as a plated course.
Braising was the backbone of the late-nineteenth-century hotel kitchen: a tough or fatty bird, colored in fat, cooked slowly in a sealed pan, and finished with its own reduced cooking liquor thickened by a mother sauce made in bulk elsewhere in the kitchen. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 while he was maitre d'hotel at the Waldorf, largely records that French professional system for American readers, which is why so many entries pair a plain household version with a garnished restaurant one under an imperial or aristocratic name. "Empress style" belongs to the long list of dishes named for royalty and public figures in the Escoffier era, when a puree, a garnish, and a title were enough to distinguish one preparation from another on a long menu; such names are conventional rather than historical, and rarely record any real connection to the person invoked.