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Curried Duckling
Put into a saucepan four teaspoonfuls of chopped onion, one teaspoonful each of ground chillies and turmeric, half a teaspoonful of ground ginger, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of ground garlic with two ounces of boiling fat, and brown them. Cut a duckling up into several pieces, and brown it slightly in the saucepan with a teaspoonful of salt, pour in two breakfast cupfuls of water and simmer on the side of the fire until the meat is quite tender, which will occupy about an hour and a half. When done turn the curry out on a dish, and serve very hot. If desired, half a teaspoonful each of ground coriander and cumin seeds may be added to this curry with advantage. Fillets of Ducklings with Green Peas (1) Roast two or three ducklings in the oven, basting frequently. Boil a pint and a half of green peas, and when tender strain off the water; mash about one pound of boiled potatoes, put them into a border mould, poach in the bain-marie for a few minutes, and then turn them out onto a hot dish. Cut as many thin croutons of bread as fillets and fry them in butter until browned. When the ducklings are cooked cut off the fillets, trim them, and arrange alternately with the croutons on the border of potatoes. Strain the gravy that has run from the ducklings into the stewpan with the peas, put in two ounces of butter, one teaspoonful of sugar, and a little salt, and stir over the fire for a few minutes. Beat the yolk of an egg with half a teacupful of cream or milk, then mix it in with the sauce; and stir by the side of the fire until thick. The sauce must not boil after the egg is added. Heap the peas in the center of the dish, and serve. (2) Roast and fillet the ducklings as for No. 1, score the skin, arrange the fillets in a circle on a dish, fill the center with plain boiled green peas, and serve with a sauceboatful of half-glaze.
Three recipes run together here: a plain braised duck curry, and two ways of serving roast duckling fillets with peas. The curry is the substantial one, and it is closer to an Anglo-Indian home curry than to anything on a Waldorf menu card.
- The hinge: brown the spices, then the birdThe dry spices go into hot fat first and are browned before the duck joins them. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly; ground turmeric and chilli scorch in under a minute, and burnt turmeric turns the whole pot bitter.
- Breakfast cupfulsA breakfast cup was a large teacup, generally reckoned at 8 to 10 fluid ounces, so two cupfuls is somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 cups of water. The exact figure hardly matters here: add enough to come partway up the duck and top up if it reduces too far.
- Two ounces of fatThat is about 1/4 cup. Duck renders a great deal of its own fat during the hour and a half of simmering, so start nearer 2 tablespoons and skim the surface generously before serving, or the curry will be a slick of grease.
- Ground garlic and ground chilliesGround garlic is garlic powder; a quarter teaspoon stands in for roughly one to two fresh cloves, minced. Ground chillies means plain cayenne or a similar hot red chilli powder, not modern American chili powder, which is a blend containing cumin and oregano.
- "On the side of the fire"On a coal range this meant off the hottest plate, at a bare tremble. Use the lowest burner setting with the lid ajar, or cover and hold it at 300F in the oven for the same hour and a half.
- DucklingsA market duckling then ran 3 to 4 lb. A supermarket Pekin duck of 5 to 6 lb serves the same purpose but will need longer to tenderize; one bird makes the curry for three or four people.
- Roasting the fillets (recipes 1 and 2)No temperature is given. Duck does well started at 425F for 20 minutes to render the skin, then finished at 350F, basting as directed; the breast fillets are best pulled at 130-135F internal even though the period expected them cooked through.
- Border mould and bain-marieThe mashed potato is packed into a ring mould and set in a pan of hot water to firm up, then unmoulded as a wall for the fillets. A plain ring pan works; a piped ring of stiff potato browned briefly under the broiler is the modern shortcut.
- The egg-yolk sauceOnce the yolk and cream go in, keep the pan below a simmer, around 180F, and stir until it coats the spoon. The instruction not to let it boil is literal: it will curdle into scrambled egg in the peas within seconds.
- Half-glazeDemi-glace. Reduced brown stock with a little Madeira or sherry stirred in at the end will stand in for it.
Oscar Tschirky's book collects the whole range of what a large New York hotel kitchen was asked to produce around 1896, which is why a straightforward Indian-style curry sits on the same page as a classical French garnish of fillets, croutons and a border of potato. Curry powder and the separate ground spices had been staples of English and American cookbooks for most of the nineteenth century, carried over through Anglo-Indian households and British hotel cooking. The two "fillets of duckling" versions show the other half of the Waldorf's repertoire: the duck is roasted, only the breast is served, and the rest of the plate is architecture. Green peas with duckling is a spring pairing that goes back to the older French canard aux petits pois, and the egg-and-cream liaison at the end is a standard nineteenth-century method for finishing a sauce.