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Duckling Saute, Italienne
Singe, cut off head, also the feet at first joint, of a tender four-pound duck, draw and neatly wipe, then cut into twelve even pieces. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a sautoir, add the duck, one piece beside another, season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper, and nicely fry for ten minutes on each side or until a nice golden colour. Add six finely chopped shallots, six well-washed and sliced fresh mushrooms, and brown for five minutes more; add ten stoned, sliced, large olives, the juice of two oranges, one gill pure tomato juice, one gill demi-glace and two ounces cooked ham cut in small squares; gently toss, cover pan and slowly cook for forty minutes, dress duck on a hot dish, pour all the contents of pan over and serve.
A straightforward braise once the bird is broken down, but the original assumes a butcher's counter and a stocked sauce station. A few translations make it workable.
- Buying the duck"Singe, cut off head... draw" describes dressing a bird bought whole and undrawn. Buy a 4 to 4 1/2 lb Pekin duckling, already drawn, and joint it: two legs split into thigh and drumstick, two wings, each breast cut across into three. That is twelve pieces.
- SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan wide enough to hold all twelve pieces in one layer without crowding. A 12-inch skillet with a lid, or a shallow braiser, does the same job.
- A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz. So half a cup tomato juice and half a cup demi-glace.
- Demi-glaceReduced brown veal stock with sauce espagnole, the backbone of a professional kitchen in 1906. Half a cup of well-reduced brown stock, or a good commercial demi-glace concentrate diluted per its instructions, gives the body the dish depends on.
- Skip the added butterDuck skin renders a great deal of fat. Start the pieces skin down in a dry pan over medium heat, and pour off most of the fat before the shallots go in, or the finished sauce will be a slick of grease.
- The browning timeTen minutes per side is for a leisurely golden colour, not a hard sear. Keep the heat moderate; duck skin at high heat scorches before it renders.
- Breast versus legForty minutes of covered cooking suits the legs and wings but will take the breast pieces well past pink. That is what the recipe intends, and the sauce keeps them moist, but if you want the breast rosy, brown it, set it aside, and return it to the pan for the last ten minutes.
- SeasoningA full teaspoon of salt plus two ounces of ham plus ten olives is a salty combination once the liquid reduces. Season lightly at the start and correct at the end.
- YieldFour servings. Rice, soft polenta or plain boiled potatoes take the sauce well.
The International Cook Book (1906) was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organised as a tour of national styles for an American kitchen that had begun to think of itself as cosmopolitan. The "italienne" label here is loose: in the French repertoire of the period the italienne garnish is usually associated with artichokes, and sauce italienne with a duxelles of mushrooms and ham — elements this dish partly shares — while what Filippini gives is a Mediterranean reading built on olives, orange juice and tomato. Orange with duck was already familiar through canard à l'orange, whose origins are commonly traced by tradition to Renaissance Italy though the story is not documented, and the addition of olives and cured ham reads as Filippini adapting a familiar French braise to what an American reader would recognise as Italian flavour. The demi-glace in the ingredient list suggests a restaurant recipe transposed to the home: it presumes a stockpot always going in the background.