No. 1926

Ducks with Turnips

Canards aux Navets

Truss a good, clean singed duck, lay it in a saucepan with melted fat pork or else lard, and fry very slowly until it acquires a fine color, then season and fry for a few moments longer, draining it off afterward. Pour into the same fat a tablespoonful of flour, cook slowly together for a few moments, moistening gradually with a pint of stock (No. 194a); stir the sauce while it keeps boiling for fifteen minutes on the side of the range. Skim off the fat, strain, and add this strained sauce to the duck with a garnishing of good, sound turnips cut in clove of garlic-shapes or else in balls, and browned in a pan with butter, salt, and a little sugar; finish cooking the duck and turnips on a very slow fire, and when both are ready, lift out the bird, untruss, and dress it in the center of a dish, surrounding it with the turnips; strain the stock, skim and reduce, if there should be too much, and when correct, pour it over the duck, and serve.

← No. 1925 Ducks with Sauerkraut Duck & Goose No. 1927 Ducks' Giblets, Housekeepers' Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic braise: the duck is browned, a quick roux-thickened sauce is built in the same fat, and bird and turnips finish together over very low heat. The one thing to control is the fat, since a duck renders a great deal of it and the sauce will break if it is not skimmed.

"Clove of garlic-shapes"This means turnips pared into small tapered ovals, roughly the shape of a garlic clove. Balls cut with a parisienne scoop are the stated alternative and are far quicker. Cut them all the same size so they cook evenly.
Stock No. 194aRanhofer's cross-reference is to a stock recipe given elsewhere in his own book. A good unsalted brown stock does the job; if using commercial stock, hold back the seasoning until the sauce has reduced, or it will finish salty.
VolumesA pint here is 16 fl oz. One tablespoon of flour to a pint of stock gives a deliberately light sauce, meant to be thickened further by reduction at the end rather than by the roux.
Browning the duck"Very slowly" is the instruction that matters. A duck browned over high heat will scorch its skin before the subcutaneous fat renders. Ten to fifteen minutes a side over medium-low, and pour off the fat as it accumulates.
Fat pork or lardUnnecessary with a modern duck, which carries plenty of its own fat. Start the bird breast-down in a dry heavy pan; a tablespoon of lard only to keep it from sticking at the outset.
SkimmingSkim the sauce twice, as written: once after the fifteen-minute boil and again before the final reduction. A duck braise that is not skimmed tastes greasy however well it is made.
TurnipsBrown them separately in butter with salt and a pinch of sugar until the edges caramelize, then add them to the braise only for the last 25 to 30 minutes. Added at the start they collapse into the sauce.
Timing and heat"A very slow fire" is a bare simmer. Reckon 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours total for a 5 lb duck; the legs should be tender enough to give under a fork while the breast is still pink at the bone.
YieldOne duck serves two generously, three at a stretch with the turnips and other courses.

A Little History

Canard aux navets is one of the standard bourgeois duck dishes of nineteenth-century French cooking, built on the sound principle that the sweetness and slight bitterness of turnips cut through a fatty bird. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a comprehensive record of the kitchen he ran, and its numbered entries assume a reader with a brigade and a stockpot already going, hence the bare cross-reference to "No. 194a" rather than a stock recipe in place. The turning of vegetables into uniform shapes, described here as "clove of garlic-shapes," was ordinary labor in a house of that size and is the clearest sign of who the book was written for. The pairing is often traced to the same seasonal logic that produced duck with green peas in spring and duck with olives in the south: turnips were the winter root at hand, and browning them with a little sugar before braising is said to have been well established by Ranhofer's day.