No. 1934

Duckling a la Lyonnaise

Caneton a la Lyonnaise

Bone the breast of a large duckling, singed and well cleaned. Fill up the empty space with a liver baking forcemeat (No. 64), mixed with a few spoonfuls of lean cooked ham cut in dice-shapes, and bread-crumbs, sew the breast skin, truss the duck, wrap it up in larding pork and let braise in a narrow saucepan slightly moistened with some stock (No. 194a), and a little white wine. Drain the duck, untie and untruss, then dress it on a dish and surround with clusters of small glazed onions alternated with clusters of whole chestnuts, first cooked, then fallen to a glaze with a little gravy (No. 404). Strain the stock, remove its fat and reduce it to a half-glaze, thicken it with a little brown sauce (No. 414), and serve it separately.

← No. 1933 Ducklings a la Grainville—Larded Duck & Goose No. 1935 Ducklings' Fillets a la Macedoine or Green P →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, espagnole and forcemeat standing by, so the recipe reads as an assembly note. Translated for one cook, it is a boned-breast duck, stuffed, barded and braised, with two garnishes finished separately.

The hinge: keep the braise low and barely moist"Slightly moistened" is literal: the liquid should come only part way up the bird in a snug pot, so the duck steams and braises rather than boils. Ranhofer specifies a narrow saucepan and gives no temperature; a low, covered braise of roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours suits a 5 lb duckling. The stock left behind is the sauce base, and drowning it means reducing forever.
Boning the breastOnly the breastbone and ribs come out; wings, legs and skin stay attached so the bird can be re-formed around the stuffing and sewn shut. A boning knife and about fifteen minutes, or ask a butcher for a partly boned duck.
"Duckling"A market duckling is a young bird of roughly 4 to 5 1/2 lb; today that is typically a Pekin duck. Muscovy runs leaner and larger and will need the same treatment with a little more liquid.
Larding porkHere it means barding: sheets of fresh pork fatback tied over the breast, not strips threaded through the meat. Substitute thinly sliced unsmoked fatback or unsmoked streaky bacon; remove it before the duck goes to the dish so the skin can be browned briefly under a broiler.
The cross-referencesNo. 64 is Ranhofer's liver baking forcemeat; figure roughly a pound of stuffing for a 5 lb bird, extended with the diced ham and breadcrumbs. No. 194a is one of his stocks, No. 414 his brown sauce (a good reduced brown stock thickened lightly will stand in), No. 404 a meat gravy for glazing the garnish.
Stuffed poultry needs a thermometerA liver forcemeat inside a sewn cavity heats slowly. Take the centre of the stuffing to 165F; the leg meat will be well past that and all the better for it in a braise.
Chestnuts and onionsCook the chestnuts through first — peeled, simmered in stock until tender but whole — then roll them in a spoonful of reduced gravy over heat until they shine. Peeled pearl onions glaze the same way. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts save an hour of peeling and hold their shape better.
The sauceStrain the braising liquid, chill it if you have time so the duck fat lifts off in a cake, then reduce to a syrupy half-glaze and slacken with a little brown sauce. It is served in a boat, not poured over, so the garnish stays glossy.
YieldFour servings, or six as part of a longer menu.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's account of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its duck chapter is essentially the French repertoire transplanted whole. "A la lyonnaise" points to Lyon and, in classical usage, almost always signals onions — here the clusters of small glazed onions in the garnish, doubled with chestnuts. The boned, stuffed and re-formed breast is an older banquet technique, prized because it lets the carver serve clean slices of duck and forcemeat together, and Ranhofer's numbered cross-references to forcemeats, stocks and sauces show how the book was meant to be used: not as a set of standalone recipes but as an index to a working kitchen where the foundations were already made each morning.