No. 2068

Teal Ducks, Roasted

Canards Sauvages, Sarcelles Rotis

This is a small kind of wild duck, the meat being quite nutritious and of an excellent flavor the blue wings are preferred to the green. Prepare the teal (No. 179), roast before a brisk fire for ten to fifteen, minutes either on the spit or allow the same time in the oven. When done to perfection salt over, untruss and serve on a hot dish either whole or carved, each one to be divided in four pieces. Dress the legs on the bottom of the dish with the breasts over, glaze, then pour into the bottom a little good gravy (No. 404); surround the birds with slices of lemon cut in two through the center.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is essentially a very fast, very hot roast: a teal weighs well under a pound, and ten to fifteen minutes is all it gets. Everything else here is assembly.

The hinge: heat and speedA brisk fire means the hottest part of the hearth. The book gives no oven temperature, so any figure is a modern reading: a very hot oven, preheated hard, with the bird on a rack in a shallow pan. Ranhofer says only "done to perfection"; modern cooks generally take teal breast no further than medium, and the short time means the skin colors before the flesh sets.
What the bird isTeal are the smallest of the common wild ducks, roughly 10-14 oz dressed. Blue-winged and green-winged teal are both hunted in North America; Ranhofer's preference for the blue wings is a market-era opinion rather than a rule. Wild teal cannot be bought at a supermarket. Farmed substitutes are much fatter and will need longer, and one or two quail will not behave the same way.
Cross-referencesNo. 179 is the number the recipe sends you to for preparing (dressing and trussing) the bird, and No. 404 for the gravy; the details of both are in those entries rather than here. Any well-reduced dark stock or game jus stands in for the gravy.
GlazeIn this book glaze is meat stock reduced to a syrup, brushed on with a pastry brush for shine. It is not a sugar glaze. A few tablespoons of demi-glace reduced further does the job.
Portions and carvingOne teal per person. "Divided in four pieces" means two legs and two breast halves; the dish is built with the legs down and the breasts laid over them, so the better meat stays hot on top.
Salt at the endThe text salts after roasting rather than before, as Ranhofer's roasts generally do; no reason is given. Season generously the moment it leaves the heat.
RestingThe text does not mention it. Give the bird three or four minutes before carving; on a carcass this small, longer and it goes cold.
ShotWild-shot birds may carry pellets and bruised, blood-shot flesh around the wound channel. Feel the breast before roasting and trim what is damaged.

A Little History

Sarcelle is the French name for teal, and Ranhofer -- chef at Delmonico's in New York, where The Epicurean (1894) was compiled -- treats the bird as a luxury item because in his day it was one: market hunters supplied restaurants with wild ducks by the barrel, and a menu could list canvasback, redhead, mallard and teal side by side as separate delicacies with separate prices. The near-total collapse of that trade came with the Lacey Act of 1900, which regulated interstate traffic in illegally taken game, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which ended commercial sale of wild waterfowl in the United States; recipes like this one survive as a record of a period when a chef could specify blue-winged over green-winged teal. The lemon halves around the dish and the plain reduced gravy set acidity against the strong, dark meat rather than any sweet fruit sauce.