No. 1918

Duck a la Matignon

Canard a la Matignon

Select a fine young duck and truss it after singeing and drawing. Cut up some carrots, bacon and onions into three-sixteenth inch squares; have also sprigs of parsley, thyme and bay leaf. Put the bacon into a sautoir with two ounces of butter, fry, put in the onions without coloring them, then add the carrots, herbs and seasoning; moisten with Madeira wine and let fall to a glaze. When cold wrap the duck with this matignon in strong sheets of buttered paper, and roast either on the spit or in the oven from three-quarters of an hour to one hour. Unwrap and add the vegetables to half a pint of espagnole sauce (No. 414) and as much broth (No. 194a); boil and despumate for half an hour reducing to the consistency of a light sauce; strain this through a tammy (No. 159) and pour a part of it over the dressed duck, serving the remainder in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1917 Duck a la Britannia—Stuffed Duck & Goose No. 1919 Duck a la Siebrecht →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a cook who already knows the Delmonico kitchen's stock cupboard and its shorthand. The dish is a straightforward roast duck; almost all the work is in the aromatic wrapping and the sauce.

What a matignon isA matignon is a mirepoix cooked down with wine until glazy and used as a garnish rather than discarded, so the cutting matters: three-sixteenths of an inch is a small, even dice, roughly 5 mm — a shade larger than a classic brunoise. Cut it evenly or the carrot will still be raw when the onion has collapsed.
The hinge: let it fall to a glaze, then cool itThe Madeira must reduce until the vegetables are coated and barely moist, and the mixture must be cold before it goes against the bird. Warm, wet matignon steams the skin and the paper tears in the oven.
Paper wrappingStrong buttered paper is best approximated with parchment; Ranhofer says only that the sheets be strong and buttered, not how many or how to secure them, though the parcel has to be closed. The effect is much like cooking en papillote around the outside of the bird. Foil works but traps more moisture; if you use it, unwrap for the last ten minutes.
SautoirA sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan, wider than a saucepan. Any 10-inch skillet does the job.
Oven temperatureRanhofer gives none. For a wrapped bird, 425F for the first 20 minutes and 375F thereafter suits the stated three-quarters of an hour to an hour; that timing implies a small young duck, though Ranhofer specifies no weight. Modern ducks are often larger; go by a thermometer, 165F at the thigh joint, rather than the clock.
Espagnole and brothHalf a pint is one cup. Espagnole is a brown roux-thickened veal stock, a day's work in itself; a strong reduced brown stock or a good demi-glace, loosened with unsalted stock, gives the same effect. Skip commercial gravy — the sauce is reduced hard and any salt in it will concentrate.
DespumateTo despumate is to skim the scum and fat that rise during a slow simmer, repeatedly, over the full half hour. It is what makes the finished sauce clear rather than cloudy and greasy.
TammyA tammy was a worsted cloth through which sauce was twisted by two people. A fine chinois, or a fine sieve lined with a rinsed cloth, is the modern equivalent.
YieldOne duck of this size serves two generously, three modestly. The strained sauce will come to roughly a cup and a half.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is essentially a French professional repertoire written out in English for American kitchens. A matignon belongs to the family of aromatic vegetable preparations codified in nineteenth-century French cookery — mirepoix, matignon, brunoise — distinguished from one another chiefly by cut and by whether the vegetables are eaten or thrown away. The name is generally traced to the aristocratic house of Matignon, one of the many eighteenth-century French titles attached to garnishes and sauces by later chefs; the attribution is traditional rather than documented. The technique of wrapping a bird in buttered paper with its aromatics, whether for the spit or the oven, was standard before reliable oven thermostats: the paper shielded the skin from scorching while the vegetables perfumed the flesh, and the whole lot was then folded into the sauce so nothing was wasted.