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Duckling, Griscom, Jr
Carefully singe, cut off feet and neck of a nice tender, five-pound duckling, split through back, remove spinal bone, draw and neatly wipe. Envelop in a towel, gently flatten with a cleaver, lightly prickle both sides with point of a larding needle and lay on a dish. Place in a mortar twelve shelled, unpeeled hazel nuts with a very small, sound, chopped shallot and pound to a fine pulp. Add a half ounce fresh butter, half teaspoon French mustard, saltspoon each curry powder and paprika, half teaspoon each freshly chopped parsley and salt, the strained juice of a sound quarter of lemon, and thoroughly pound again for one minute. Remove pulp from mortar, carefully rub duck over with it and let infuse for forty-five minutes, being careful to rub quite frequently meanwhile, arrange duck on a double broiler and broil over brisk fire for six minutes on each side.
Peel and core three good-sized sound apples, cut in four equal slices each, lay on a lightly buttered baking dish and place duck over apples. Arrange six thin slices lean bacon and spread remaining mixed butter, etc., over the duck, set in oven for twenty minutes, frequently basting with its own gravy meanwhile, remove and send to table in same dish.
A spatchcocked duckling under a hazelnut-and-spice paste, part-broiled and then finished over apples. The original assumes a coal range and a cook who knows what a duck should look like when it is done; two of its numbers need adjusting.
- Splitting the bird"Split through back, remove spinal bone, draw" is spatchcocking: cut down either side of the backbone with shears, remove it, then press the bird flat. A five-pound duckling is now sold oven-ready, so the drawing and singeing are done for you; a quick pass with a lit taper still helps with stray pinfeathers.
- Pricking the skinThe larding-needle pricks are not decorative: they help the rub penetrate and let some of the thick fat layer under the skin render out. Angle the point so it goes through skin and fat only, not into the meat, or the juices run away with the fat.
- Saltspoon and other small measuresA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. "French mustard" in a 1906 American book means smooth Dijon, not the sweetened yellow sort.
- The nut pasteTwelve hazelnuts pounded in a mortar with shallot, butter and spices takes about three minutes by hand; a small food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it or the nut oil separates. Leaving the skins on, as directed, is right — they give the paste its colour and a faint bitterness against the apple.
- Double broiler and brisk fireA double broiler is a hinged wire grill basket that clamps the bird between two grids so it can be flipped whole. A modern gas grill on high, or an overhead broiler with the bird on a rack, gives the same six minutes a side; expect flare-ups from rendering fat.
- Oven heat, unstatedNo temperature is given. The dish goes from a fierce broiling into the oven only to finish, so a hot oven, somewhere around 425F, is a reasonable modern choice -- hot enough to soften the apples and crisp the bacon in twenty minutes.
- Timing and donenessTwelve minutes of broiling plus twenty in the oven will leave the breast rosy, which is how duck is generally wanted, but the legs of a five-pound bird will still be tough and pink at the bone. Either take the breast off at the stated time and give the legs another fifteen to twenty minutes, or plan on a longer bake and accept a more cooked breast.
- Basting and the bacon"Its own gravy" means the rendered duck fat and apple juices in the dish. Six slices of bacon over an already fatty bird is a lot of grease; pour some off midway if the apples are swimming rather than roasting.
- YieldA five-pound duckling serves three, four at a stretch. The apples are the whole garnish, so add a green salad or bitter leaves.
The name is the tell. This comes from Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906), and Filippini "— long a chef at Delmonico's — filled his books with dishes titled after the New York businessmen, clubmen and steamship men he had fed, a common practice in restaurant cookery of the period and the reason so many entries carry a surname and a "Jr." with no explanation. The dish itself is squarely of its moment: duckling with apples is an old northern European pairing, the fruit's acidity cutting the fat, but the curry powder and paprika rubbed into the same paste as hazelnuts and Dijon belong to the turn-of-the-century grand-hotel kitchen, where a shake of curry was shorthand for worldliness rather than any claim to Indian cooking. The two-stage method — hard broiling first, then a short bake over the garnish — is often said to suit flattened birds cooked on a coal range, which gave you a fierce grill and a cooling oven in the same appliance.