No. 1925

Ducks with Sauerkraut

Canards a la Choucroute

Dress two nice ducks; place them in a saucepan lined with bards of fat pork, some carrots and onions and a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123); moisten with stock (No. 194a), boil; skim and cook in a moderate oven for an hour to an hour a half. Put two pounds of well washed sauerkraut in a saucepan, add two onions, one containing two cloves, half a pound of sliced carrots, half a pound of blanched breast of bacon and half a pound of raw sausage (with or without garlic according to taste). Moisten with half broth and half fat taken from the stock-pot, boil and cook slowly for two hours, then drain and dish it around the duck with the sausage and bacon cut in slices dressed intercalated. Stir a poivrade sauce (No. 522) into the duck stock, pour a third of it over the ducks, serving the other two-thirds separately.

← No. 1924 Ducks with Olives—Braised Duck & Goose No. 1926 Ducks with Turnips →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a braise in two parts: the ducks in stock in the oven, the sauerkraut in a separate pan with its garnish of bacon and sausage, brought together only at the moment of dishing. Nothing here is difficult, but the recipe leans on numbered cross-references and a butcher's vocabulary that no longer travels.

The hinge: keep the two pans separateThe kraut is cooked in broth and skimmed fat, not with the ducks, and only drained and arranged around them at the end. Cooking the birds in the sauerkraut instead will bleach the duck of its own flavour and turn the garnish sour and watery.
"Moderate oven"Somewhere around 325-350F in modern terms; Ranhofer gives no temperature and does not say to cover the pan, though the liquid should barely tremble. An hour to an hour and a half suits a 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 lb duck of the sort sold now.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of cut fatback used to line the pan and keep the birds from catching. Unsmoked fatback or salt pork, sliced about 1/8 inch, is the closest thing; thick-cut unsmoked bacon will stand in, though it adds cure flavour.
The numbered referencesNo. 123 is Ranhofer's garnished bunch of parsley, i.e. a bouquet garni; No. 194a one of his stocks; No. 522 his poivrade, which in general is a brown sauce sharpened with vinegar and crushed pepper. Look each up in the book rather than trusting a summary. A good brown sauce or reduced duck stock sharpened with red wine vinegar and coarse pepper serves the same purpose.
"Blanched breast of bacon"Poitrine, meaning slab bacon in a piece rather than rashers. Blanching means five to ten minutes in simmering water to draw out salt and smoke, which matters because the kraut and the stock-pot fat are already salty.
"Raw sausage"A fresh, uncooked coarse pork sausage: Toulouse, a fresh kielbasa, or a plain bratwurst. Not a cured or smoked ring, which will not want the full two hours in the pan.
Sauerkraut and the washingThe instruction to wash it well suggests the barrel kraut Ranhofer bought was saltier and sharper than most refrigerated kraut sold now. Rinse and squeeze modern kraut once rather than washing it thoroughly, or the two-hour braise may leave it flat.
Fat from the stock-potHalf broth, half skimmed fat is what Ranhofer asks for and is not a misprint, but rendered duck or goose fat does the job with less trouble. Degrease the duck's braising liquid before stirring in the poivrade.
"Intercalated" and yieldIt means the bacon and sausage slices are laid alternately around the ring of kraut. Two ducks with this quantity of garnish serve six generously; a third of the sauce goes over the birds and the rest into a sauceboat.

A Little History

Choucroute is Alsatian, and the pairing of long-braised sauerkraut with rich preserved and fatty meats is the culinary signature of the Rhine borderland; the fermented cabbage itself is far older and much more widely spread, having served northern and central Europe as winter vegetable insurance for centuries. What makes this version distinctly French professional cooking rather than a peasant garniture is the separation of labour: the kraut is cooked as a garnish in its own pan with its own aromatics and fat, then arranged as a border, while the ducks keep their own braising liquid, which is finished into a poivrade. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete working system, which is why the recipe reads as a set of instructions to a cook who already has stock, bouquet garni and mother sauces standing by. Duck appears in quantity in the book because it was still an autumn and winter staple of the American table, wild and domestic alike, and sauerkraut was familiar to New York diners through the city's large German population.