No. 1928

Ducks' Paupiettes with Risot

Paupiettes de Canards au Risot

Singe some young ducks; bone them entirely, removing all the meat and use this to make a well seasoned quenelle forcemeat into which mix finely cut up chives, truffles, and mushrooms, both chopped and three-sixteenth of an inch squares of cooked ham. With this forcemeat cover pieces of the duck's skin cut in four or six parts, and roll them up into paupiettes, covering each one with a slice of fat pork; lay these in buttered paupiette rings, and place them in a sautoir covered with bardes of fat pork, and moisten with some good stock (No. 194a); cover over with a buttered paper, and then a round baking dish which will fit into the saucepan. Cook in a moderate oven, and when done and glazed to a fine color, take from the rings and dress them in a circle; garnish the center with risot (No. 739), and place a channeled mushroom head (No. 118) on top of each paupiette; serve with a sauce prepared as follows: Fry some minced onions in oil, drain, place it in a saucepan with lemon juice, mignonette, and Spanish sauce (No. 414), also the skimmed duck stock reduced to a half-glaze, and then strained through a tammy; serve it in a sauce-boat at the same time as the paupiettes.

← No. 1927 Ducks' Giblets, Housekeepers' Style Duck & Goose No. 1929 Mongrel Duck—Roasted and Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade, a stock pot already going, and a shelf of numbered cross-references. Stripped down, this is boned duck rolled in its own skin, braised over stock, and served with rice and a sharp onion sauce.

The hinge: the skin wrappersThe forcemeat is spread on pieces of duck skin, not on flattened meat, so the skin must be trimmed clean of loose fat or the paupiettes weep and slump. Roll tightly and chill the rolls firm before they go into the rings; a slack paupiette unwinds in the braise.
Paupiette rings and sautoirPaupiette rings are plain metal bands, sized to the roll, that hold each paupiette upright — small ring moulds, tuna cans with both ends removed, or a tight muffin tin all work. A sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan with a lid; any wide braiser will do.
Bardes of fat porkBardes are thin sheets of pork back fat laid over the food to baste it. Sheet fatback from a butcher is the true article; thin-sliced unsmoked pancetta or caul fat is the nearest substitute. Smoked bacon will dominate the duck.
Moderate ovenRoughly 325-350F. The paupiettes are braised under paper and an inverted dish, so they steam rather than roast; allow something like 40 to 50 minutes for rolls of this size, then uncover to glaze, cooking until done as the recipe directs.
Quenelle forcemeatAll the meat taken off the boned ducks, ground to a quenelle forcemeat and seasoned firmly (such forcemeats are usually bound with egg and cream), then kept cold. A food processor does in two minutes what the original expected of a mortar; keep everything refrigerator-cold or the fat breaks.
Spanish sauce and mignonetteSpanish sauce is sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on roux and veal stock. Mignonette is coarsely cracked white pepper, added late so it stays aromatic. A well-reduced brown duck stock stands in for the espagnole without embarrassment.
TammyA tammy is a worsted straining cloth wrung between two people to force sauce through. A fine chinois with a ladle pressed into it gives the same result.
RisotRanhofer's No. 739 is a rice preparation in the risotto manner, rice cooked in stock; cook it close to service.
YieldThe recipe does not say how many ducks; each bird's skin is cut into four or six pieces, so two young ducks would give roughly eight to twelve paupiettes, or four to six servings as a main course.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of what he cooked during three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York — a book written for professionals, which is why nearly every ingredient arrives as a number pointing elsewhere in its own pages. A paupiette is a French kitchen term for a thin sheet of meat spread with stuffing and rolled; the trick here of using the duck's own skin as the wrapper and its leg meat as the filling belongs to the nineteenth-century high-kitchen habit of dismantling a bird entirely and rebuilding it into something more manageable at table. "Risot" is the period spelling of risotto, and its appearance beside a French duck preparation might be read as a hint of Italian influence at work in Delmonico's cooking, though that is a suggestion rather than an established fact.