No. 2062

Redhead Ducks a la Bareda

Canards Sauvages a Tete Rouge a la Bareda

These ducks are first to be prepared the same as for roasting; put them in a pan, cover with good fat and roast them in the oven; add one gill of vinegar, a spoonful of powdered sugar, and mignonette pepper; baste the birds several times while cooking and salt over a few moments before removing from the oven. Untruss and strain the stock, suppress all the fat, and place it in a sauce-pan with some espagnole sauce (No. 414) currant jelly, mixing the whole well together, pass through a sieve. Make a sour apple marmalade, drain properly and press it through a very fine sieve, stir in some unsweetened whipped cream; serve these two sauces separately at the same time as the birds.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a cook who already knows how to truss and roast a bird, and a larder with espagnole standing by. The hinge is doneness: a redhead is a lean diving duck that turns dry and livery the moment it passes medium-rare.

Doneness above allModern practice takes wild duck breast to roughly 125-130F internal with a rest before carving; Ranhofer gives no temperature. The Epicurean's other redhead entries appear to favour underdone roasting, and this one gives no time at all, so cook to temperature rather than to the clock.
A gill of vinegarA gill is half a cup. With a spoonful of sugar it makes a sweet-sour basting liquor rather than a marinade, and it is also what gives the strained pan juices their edge once the fat is removed.
Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked pepper, traditionally white or a mix of white and black, crushed rather than ground fine. Cracked black peppercorns from a mortar are the practical substitute.
"Cover with good fat"This means the bird is roasted sitting in fat, not merely brushed with it. Rendered duck fat, clarified butter or lard, roughly enough to film the pan generously, keeps a lean wild bird from drying while it is basted.
EspagnoleRecipe No. 414 is the book's foundational brown sauce, built on brown roux and stock. A good reduced brown veal or duck stock, lightly thickened, stands in for it without embarrassment.
Sour apple marmaladeNot preserve in the modern sense but a thick puree of tart apples, cooked down, drained of its water and sieved; the recipe does not state whether it is sweetened. Bramley, Granny Smith or any hard cooking apple works; the whipped cream is folded in unsweetened, so the sauce stays sharp against the jelly sauce.
Currant jellyRed currant jelly, added by the spoonful to taste; the original gives no quantity. Two to three tablespoons per cup of sauce is enough to gloss and sweeten it without turning it into a dessert glaze.
Oven heatNo temperature is given. A hot oven, 425-450F, is right for a small wild duck: it colours the skin in the time the breast needs, which a moderate oven will not do.
Yield and serviceA redhead dresses out small; count one bird for one diner, or one bird between two if the ducks are large and there is a substantial garnish. Both sauces go to table in separate boats, as the recipe directs, so each mouthful can be taken sweet or sour.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and its wildfowl chapter reflects an American restaurant culture in which canvasback and redhead ducks from the Chesapeake and the Great Lakes flyways were luxury goods, shipped in on ice and priced accordingly. Both species feed on wild celery and pondweed, which was believed to give their flesh a cleaner, nuttier taste than that of fish-eating divers, and menus of the 1880s and 1890s advertise them by name. Dishes in the book carry surnames such as a la Bareda, though the particular person here is not identified in the text. The pairing of a sweetened brown sauce with an unsweetened apple puree lightened with cream is characteristic of the period's approach to strong-flavoured game: sharp fruit to cut the richness, jelly to round it, and the choice left to the diner.