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Roast Redhead Ducks
Pick, singe, draw and neatly wipe two fine, fat redhead ducks. Season the inside of each with a good half teaspoon salt, cut the neck of each duck near the carcass, run in the head from the end of the neck to the back of each duck and nicely truss. Place a small branch of celery inside of each bird, place them on a roasting pan and spread a teaspoon melted butter on the surface of each. Sprinkle a very little salt over them. Set in a brisk oven to roast for from sixteen to eighteen minutes. Remove, untruss and take out the celery. Dress on a hot dish. Skim off the fat from the gravy, drop in two tablespoons hot water, lightly mix and boil on the range for one minute, then strain the gravy over the ducks and serve with six pieces of fried hominy and currant jelly separately.
A wild-duck recipe from the era when diving ducks were sold in city markets. The method is sound but assumes a very hot oven, a very short roast, and a bird you now have to shoot yourself.
- The hinge: heat and hasteSixteen to eighteen minutes only works in a genuinely fierce oven, which in modern terms probably means something in the region of 450-500F. The point is to brown the skin before the lean breast meat dries; a moderate oven for the same time leaves the skin flabby and the flesh grey.
- "Brisk oven"The book gives no oven temperatures. Brisk was the period term for a hot oven, at or near the top of the usual range, well above what would have been called moderate.
- Doneness as writtenAt that time and temperature a redhead comes out rare to very rare at the breastbone, which is how wild duck is commonly served. Anyone who wants it cooked through should expect a different and much tougher dish, since these birds have almost no intramuscular fat.
- Getting the birdRedhead (Aythya americana) is legal North American game taken under licence in season with federal and state bag limits; wild waterfowl cannot legally be bought or sold in the United States. Farmed duck is the practical substitute, but a 5 lb Pekin needs a longer, lower roast and yields a far fattier result than this recipe anticipates.
- Trussing through the backRunning the head back along the body and pinning it is a period presentation for game birds. Ordinary trussing with string does the same job if the head has already been removed.
- The celeryIt is an aromatic and a moisture buffer, discarded before serving. Diving ducks were said to taste of the wild celery beds they fed in, though whether the stalk in the cavity was meant to echo that is only a guess.
- Fried hominyNot canned whole hominy but stiff cooked hominy or coarse grits, poured into a pan, chilled until firm, cut into squares or triangles and fried in butter until crisp. Six pieces for two birds.
- The gravyThere is no flour and no stock: skim the fat, loosen the pan browning with two tablespoons of hot water, boil one minute, strain. It is a thin deglazing jus, and the currant jelly served alongside supplies the sweetness.
- YieldTwo redheads serve two generously or four modestly; they are small birds, roughly 2 lb undressed.
Redhead was one of the American market ducks, ranked with canvasback by nineteenth-century restaurateurs because the diving birds fattened on wild celery (Vallisneria) in the Chesapeake and other coastal bays, and were said to take their flavour from it. Wild waterfowl reached city markets in autumn, which is why a book like this treats them as an ordinary purchase and gives no more instruction than for a chicken. That trade was killed off by the Lacey Act of 1900 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which ended commercial hunting of migratory birds and moved dishes like this one permanently out of restaurants and into the hunter's kitchen. The recipe's brevity and its garnish of fried hominy and currant jelly place it in the American fine-dining idiom, where game was roasted hard and fast and served with a sweet-tart accompaniment rather than a sauce.