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Terrine of Duckling, Hicks
Singe, cut off head and feet of a tender duckling of four pounds, split open, without separating, through back, draw, remove all bones, season inside of bird with half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper, saltspoon grated nutmeg and saltspoon ground mixed allspice. Sprinkle two ounces peeled pistachios inside of duck, fold up to its original form. Place bones of the duck in a roasting pan with a small sliced carrot, three sliced shallots, one bay leaf and one clove. Spread a teaspoon melted butter over the bones, set in oven fifteen minutes, remove, place in mortar and pound to a pulp. Remove and place in a saucepan with two gills tomato sauce and two gills demi-glace, and let reduce on fire to half the quantity. Strain through a sieve into a clean mortar and let cool off. Finely chop half pound raw lean veal with half pound of fresh fat pork, place both in mortar, season with half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne, half saltspoon grated nutmeg, one saltspoon ground allspice, two tablespoons sherry and one tablespoon good old Jamaica rum, add two egg yolks and thoroughly pound all well together then rub it through a wire sieve into a bowl. Line the bottom and sides of an oval earthen cocotte terrine with very thin slices of larding pork. Arrange three-quarters of the force at the bottom and sides of the terrine, place the duck in the center, spread the remaining force over the duck, pour over two tablespoons sherry, cover with thin slices larding pork, place a bay leaf on top in the centre. Prickle the patty from top to bottom four or five times with a needle, place cover over, place the terrine on a roasting pan, pour in hot water up to a third of the height of mould, and set in oven one hour. Bring to oven door, lift up cover, pour in quarter gill brandy, re-cover and re-set in oven thirty-five minutes more. Remove, let stand in a cool place for ten minutes. Place an oval board on top of patty, then lay a pound weight on top of the board, and keep it in that condition until thoroughly cold. Unmould on a dish, remove all the lard around the terrine, neatly wipe the inside of same, then set on ice. Melt eight tablespoons jelly in a small saucepan; pour one-third of the jelly into the terrine, let thoroughly set; sprinkle over a minced truffle. Replace the pate in the terrine, pour balance of the jelly all around between the terrine and patty, then let thoroughly congeal. Carefully immerse in cold water a few seconds, unmould on a dish with a folded napkin, decorate all around with a few cleaned lettuce leaves and serve.
A full charcuterie project in nineteenth-century shorthand: a boned duck wrapped in a pounded veal-and-pork forcemeat, baked in a water bath, pressed cold, then glazed with aspic. The original assumes a professional larder, so the gaps worth filling are the oven temperature, the fat, and the cooling.
- The hinge: press it while it is still warmThe board and the one-pound weight go on within ten minutes of the terrine leaving the oven, before the juices set. Press it cold and the forcemeat stays porous, the slices crumble, and the aspic runs into the gaps instead of sitting cleanly around the loaf.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A covered terrine in a bain-marie is usually baked around 325F; the water in the roasting pan should stay hot but never boil, or the forcemeat curdles and weeps fat. Total time here is 1 hour 35 minutes.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockSince the loaf contains raw veal and fresh pork, take it to 155-160F at the centre with a probe pushed through one of the needle holes. A duck boned unevenly, or a colder mould, can leave the middle short at 95 minutes.
- UnitsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of tomato sauce and two gills of demi-glace are a cup each, reduced to a cup total; a quarter gill of brandy is two tablespoons. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon.
- Larding porkThis means unsmoked back fat (fatback or barding fat), sliced thin enough to see through, not streaky bacon and not cured salt pork. A butcher will cut it; smoked bacon will dominate the pistachio and nutmeg entirely.
- Demi-glace and "jelly"Demi-glace is a reduced brown veal stock, sold frozen or as concentrate. The eight tablespoons of jelly is aspic: strong clear stock set with gelatin so it is firm at refrigerator temperature but still just pourable when melted and cooled to lukewarm.
- Boning the duckSplit down the backbone without cutting through the breast skin and work the carcass out whole, leaving the bird as one flat sheet. Reserve every bone for the roasted-bone reduction, which is what gives the forcemeat its colour and depth.
- Chilling and keeping"A cool place" meant a larder; use the refrigerator, and give it a full night under weight before unmoulding and glazing. Once glazed, keep it cold and eat within three or four days.
- YieldA four-pound duckling plus a pound of forcemeat serves twelve to sixteen as a first course, cut in half-inch slices with the aspic left attached.
The International Cook Book belongs to the era when a hotel chef's repertoire was catalogued dish by dish, and names like "Hicks" attached to a preparation are generally taken to record a patron, a colleague or a regular guest rather than any place of origin. The dish itself is straightforward French charcuterie: a terrine is properly the earthenware vessel, and the food took the vessel's name, just as pâté once meant something baked in pastry — note that this text slips between "patty" and "pate" for the loaf itself, a reminder of how unsettled the English borrowings still were. Duck terrines lined with back fat, studded with pistachios and truffle, and sealed under aspic were fixtures of the cold buffet in grand American hotels and restaurants around 1900, where they could be made a day ahead, sliced to order, and displayed on a folded napkin. The pounding of bones and forcemeat in a mortar, then rubbing everything through a wire sieve, is the pre-food-processor labour that made such dishes the work of a dedicated larder cook.