No. 1932

Duckling a la Bourguignonne—Fried

Caneton Frit a la Bourguignonne

Divide a young tender duck into five pieces; two legs, two wings and a breast piece; pare nicely leaving the pinion bones on the wings and suppressing the leg bones; lay these pieces in a vessel to season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, chopped parsley, very little pulverized thyme and bay leaf and olive oil. Break up the carcass, fry it in butter, until well colored, adding mushroom parings, shallots, cloves, mignonette and nutmeg, then moisten with red wine and cook the whole slowly for half an hour, strain through a sieve and add this stock gradually to an espagnole sauce (No. 414), that is being reduced, and boil both together to the consistency of a light gravy. Roll the pieces of drained duck in flour, immerse them in eggs and fry in a very white frying fat over a moderate fire, allowing them to attain a fine golden brown while cooking, serve on a folded napkin with the sauce in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1931 Ducklings a la Bordelaise—Sauted Duck & Goose No. 1933 Ducklings a la Grainville—Larded →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade, a stockpot of espagnole already on the stove, and a cook who knows what "very white frying fat" means. The dish is a marinated duck fricassee, egg-and-flour coated and deep-fried, with a red wine sauce built from the carcass.

The hinge: the sauce is made from the bird you are fryingThe carcass, chopped and browned hard in butter, is the whole flavour base. Do not skip the browning or rush the half-hour simmer in red wine — an underdeveloped carcass stock gives a thin, sour sauce that the espagnole cannot rescue.
Espagnole (No. 414)A brown roux-based sauce built on brown stock and aromatics, simmered and skimmed at length. If you are not making it, reduce a good brown veal stock with a little tomato paste until it coats a spoon and use that; the finished gravy should be light, not gluey.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked white or black peppercorns, not a vinegar shallot relish. In cookery of this period the word normally refers to the crushed pepper itself.
ButcheryFive pieces from one duckling: two legs boned out entirely, two wings with the pinion bone left in for a handle, and the breast in one piece. Boning the legs matters — it lets them cook through in the same time as the breast.
The marinadeNo time is given. Two to four hours in the refrigerator is right for salt, pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme, bay and oil; overnight in lemon juice will make the surface mealy. Drain and pat dry before flouring, or the coating slides off.
"Very white frying fat"Fresh, clean, unused fat — lard or clarified beef fat in 1894, since reused fat carries flavours and browns too fast. A neutral oil is the modern equivalent. The book gives no temperatures; in modern terms "a moderate fire" for deep frying is usually read as somewhere around 325-340F, low enough that bone-in pieces cook through before the egg coating darkens.
DonenessDuck legs want to reach about 175F internally to be tender; the breast piece will be done well before that and can be pulled first. Fry the legs and wings together, the breast separately.
Service and yieldThe folded napkin on the platter absorbs frying fat — a linen napkin or a rack over a warm dish does the same job. One duckling in five pieces serves two to three, with the sauce passed separately so the crust stays crisp.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer served as chef of Delmonico's in New York across two spells, roughly 1862-76 and 1879-96, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire set down in print — over a thousand pages, cross-referenced by number, written for cooks who already had a stocked garde-manger. The "à la bourguignonne" label here signals the red wine in the sauce rather than any connection to the Burgundian bœuf stew most readers now associate with the name; nineteenth-century French kitchen nomenclature used regional adjectives loosely, as shorthand for a dominant ingredient. Frying a duckling in batter-like egg and flour coating looks unusual today, but it belongs to a large family of fritures in the classical repertoire, where poultry and game were poached or marinated, coated, and fried. The instruction to serve on a folded napkin was standard restaurant practice for anything fried, and survived on menus well into the twentieth century.