No. 1940

Salmis of Duckling

Salmis de Caneton

To Roast.—Select a young and very tender duck, prepare and truss it for roasting the same as explained in No. 179; it should be roasted on the spit or in the oven for fifteen to twenty-five minutes according to its size and the heat of the fire. A domestic duck ought to be served quite rare, and should be killed without bleeding. Dish it after untrussing and pour over a little of its gravy, garnish around with water-cress and serve the remainder of the gravy in a sauceboat.

For the Salmis.—Cut the roasted duck up in two or three slices from each breast. Chop up the legs and carcasses and fry them in butter with an ounce of onions and as much shallot, both minced very finely; add the parings, pepper and mignonette, then moisten with red wine and some brown sauce (No. 414); reduce this to half, strain it through a tammy and pour it over the pieces of dressed duck; surround with heart-shaped bread croutons and serve very hot.

← No. 1939 Duckling, Peasant Style Duck & Goose No. 1941 Duckling, with Bigarade Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's salmis is a two-stage dish: the duck is roasted rare, carved, and then its own frame becomes the sauce. The hinge is that the breast meat is never cooked again — the finished sauce is poured over it hot, and that is all the further cooking it gets.

Roasting heatA spit before a brisk fire, or a very hot oven; the book specifies no temperature, only "the heat of the fire," so any figure is an editorial equivalent. Fifteen to twenty-five minutes leaves the breast rare, which is what the recipe intends.
"Killed without bleeding"An instruction to the poulterer, not the cook. An unbled bird retains blood in the flesh, giving the dark, almost livery character prized in salmis and canard au sang. Duck prepared this way is all but unobtainable now; buy the best whole duckling you can and accept a milder result.
Rare duck and the legsRare duck breast is standard practice and reads as normal today. The legs are a different matter — at fifteen minutes they are raw, which is why the recipe sends them straight into the pan to be fried and simmered in the sauce. Do not shortcut that step and serve the legs from the roast.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked white peppercorns. Not the shallot-and-vinegar sauce for oysters, which took the same name later.
Brown sauce No. 414Ranhofer's espagnole — a long-simmered brown veal stock thickened with brown roux. A good reduced veal or duck demi-glace stands in. Avoid anything sweet or tomato-heavy.
ParingsThe trimmings from carving: skin edges, wing tips, scraps left on the frame. They go into the pan with the chopped carcass for flavour and are strained out.
TammyA woollen straining cloth, worked by twisting between two people. A fine chinois pressed hard, then a pass through a fine sieve, gives the same clarity.
Wine and reductionA dry red — the sauce is reduced by half, so anything with residual sugar concentrates badly. Strain, then bring the sauce fully hot before it goes over the sliced breast, since that heat is doing the final work.
YieldOne duckling serves two generously, three at a pinch. Croutons are cut heart-shaped from crustless bread and fried in clarified butter; set them around the dish, not under the sauce, or they soften at once.

A Little History

A salmis is a French method rather than a single dish: a bird roasted only part-way, jointed, and finished in a sauce built from its own carcass and a good brown stock. The name is generally traced to salmigondis, an old word for a hashed ragout of mixed meats, and the technique belonged first to game — woodcock, snipe, partridge — where the bones and trail carried most of the flavour. Applying it to a domestic duckling, as Charles Ranhofer does here for Delmonico's, is a way of borrowing game manners for a farmed bird, which is also why he asks for it unbled and served rare. The Epicurean (1894) is a working restaurant manual, and the cross-references to numbered preparations for trussing and for brown sauce show how it was meant to be used: a cook already had those elements standing, and the salmis was assembled from them in minutes at the pass.