No. 2070

Salmis of Teal Ducks a la Harrison

Salmis de Canards Sauvages, Sarcelles a la Harrison

Roast some teal ducks as for No. 2068. Fry a shallot lightly in butter without acquiring color; add some raw chopped mushrooms, salt, pepper and nutmeg, then moisten with champagne and reduce with the following fumet and espagnole sauce (No. 414) to a proper consistency. Break up the carcasses of the birds, moisten these with broth (No. 194a) and cook for fifteen minutes, then strain forcibly; add to it some cooked ham cut in one-eighth of an inch squares and chopped parsley. The ducks must be cut in four pieces each, namely: two legs, two wings, each of these to be cut lengthwise; dress, mix the gravy and sauce together, pour it over and surround with heart-shaped croutons, then serve.

← No. 2069 Teal Ducks a la Pontchartrain, Breasts Wild Duck & Waterfowl No. 2071 Grouse, Prairie Hens or Ptarmigan, Broiled →

For the Modern Kitchen

A salmis is a two-stage dish: the birds are roasted first, then finished in a sauce built from their own bones. Ranhofer assumes you have his espagnole and broth already standing in the larder, so most of the work here is deciding what to substitute.

Start with the carcass stockThe hinge of the dish is the fumet made from the broken-up carcasses: break them up, moisten with the broth (No. 194a), simmer 15 minutes and strain forcibly. That extraction, not the champagne, is what gives a salmis its depth.
Espagnole sauce (No. 414)A brown sauce thickened with roux and long reduced; consult Ranhofer's own No. 414 for its exact make-up. A good reduced brown stock lightly thickened, or a modern demi-glace loosened with stock, stands in for it. The recipe gives no quantity, so judge by how much sauce you want.
Broth No. 194aRanhofer's plain white or light beef broth. Unsalted chicken or veal stock is the right substitute; avoid anything heavily seasoned, since the sauce reduces twice.
Teal are smallA teal is a small bird, roughly three-quarters of a pound to a pound whole and less once dressed, so one bird per person is a light portion and two is generous. The four-piece cut Ranhofer specifies gives very small pieces; the breast is better left whole and sliced at the table.
Roast rare, finish gentlyTeal breast is lean and dries out fast; roast hot and brief, then let the sauce only warm the pieces through rather than simmering them. Reheating in the sauce past a few minutes turns the meat grey and stringy.
ChampagneAny dry sparkling or still white wine works; the point is acidity, and the bubbles are gone within seconds of hitting the pan. Note that Ranhofer reduces the champagne together with the fumet and espagnole rather than reducing it dry first.
Ham dice and croutonsEighth-inch dice means a fine brunoise of the cooked ham Ranhofer specifies, added at the end so it does not go tough. The croutons are bread cut in hearts and fried; fry them just before serving or they soften in the sauce.
Shot and donenessWild birds may carry lead fragments and grit from the shot channel; check the flesh before saucing. If the ducks came from a hunter rather than a farm, cook them to your own comfort rather than to the rare finish of the period dining room.

A Little History

Salmis belongs to the older French kitchen's habit of serving a bird twice over: roasted for its flesh, then again in a sauce drawn from its frame, a technique the eighteenth-century tables applied above all to game, where the bones carry most of the flavour. Charles Ranhofer printed this in The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. Ranhofer devoted pages to teal and canvasback because wild waterfowl were still market goods in the 1890s, shot commercially and sold by the barrel in eastern cities; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 ended that trade in the United States, which is why such a restaurant list of teal preparations reads today like a document from another economy.