French Provincial Cooking (99 page)

To serve, surround the duck with the jelly, turned out of its mould and cut into squares, each with a cherry embedded in it. This is a simple version of the dish known to French chefs as
canard à la Montmorency.

Tinned morello cherries can be used for garnishing the duck when fresh ones are unobtainable.

No doubt the idea of boiling a duck will cause raised eyebrows. All the same, it is an excellent method (the Welsh way of salting and boiling a duck is one of the very best of our native dishes) and provides an interesting alternative to roasting.

To cook the duck, first of all put a very large pan of water (I use a huge oval iron
daubière)
on to boil. Add a tablespoon of salt. While the water is coming to the boil, chop a few sprigs of fresh, washed parsley, and work it with 1 oz. of butter; to this add the liver of the duck, previously rinsed in warm water and also chopped. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff the bird with this mixture. If the poulterer has trussed the duck with a skewer through the legs, remove it because it is not necessary and only makes the animal more difficult to handle when it is cooked.

Wrap the duck in an old white napkin, cheesecloth or clean tea towel. Tie the ends like a sausage, and put a string also round the middle. Cook in the steadily boiling water for 50 minutes for a 4
to 5 lb. duck (i.e. approximately 3 lb. when dressed and drawn). Remove from the saucepan and leave on a dish to cool a little before untying it. In the meantime prepare the following sauce: Melt a finely-chopped shallot in a little butter until it turns palest yellow. Pour in a small glass (4 tablespoons) of white or red wine or dry vermouth. Let it bubble. Add 2 tablespoons of reduced meat stock or stock from the duck giblets as explained below. Let this sauce reduce a little. Then, having unwrapped the duck, scoop out the liver stuffing with a spoon and stir it into the sauce. Now remove the saucepan from the fire and add to the sauce about 1
oz. of butter cut into little pieces. Shake the pan until the butter has amalgamated with the sauce and thickened it but do not put the saucepan back on the fire again.

Serve the duck with a dish of pilaff rice cooked as follows: In a pan of boiling salted water cook 1
teacups of long-grained Patna rice for 7 minutes. Drain it in a colander or sieve and then hold the sieve under running cold water until all the starch is washed away and the water runs out clear. Put the rice in an earthenware or other oven pot and pour over 2
teacups of hot stock previously made, if you have none already available, from the giblets and neck of the duck plus vegetables, herbs and plenty of seasoning. Add a small lump of butter, about
oz., and stir it round in the rice. Now put a folded teacloth over the pot, then the lid, and cook in a moderate oven, Gas No. 4, 355 deg. F., for 25 minutes—all this arranged, of course, to coincide with the cooking of the duck. When you take the rice from the oven, the liquid will be absorbed and the rice will be swollen and perfectly cooked, shining and moist.

Now, as anyone can see, this dish is quite an arduous one to prepare because of the three separate operations involved. An alternative method is as follows: have your duck cold but give it an extra 20 minutes’ cooking at a rather slower pace, because you will probably want to serve the legs as well as the breast, and at 50 minutes they are not sufficiently done for cold eating. The rice cooked in the duck stock and served with the liver sauce, which is quite delicious hot but not so good cold, can be served as a hot first course for another meal. The cold duck—and on the whole I think duck is at its best cold—can be accompanied by a green salad and followed by a hot sweet dish, such as an open apple tart. The first course could be a hot and creamy vegetable soup, a
gratin
of fish such as the one described on page 291 or perhaps the courgette soufflé on page 202.

To roast a goose successfully a capacious, deep roasting tin is necessary to catch the large amount of fat which flows from the bird during cooking.

As there are plenty of potatoes to go with it, the goose need not necessarily be stuffed for this recipe; indeed, in spite of tradition, I think myself that a goose tends to be better without a stuffing, but a chestnut and apple mixture like the one described for the turkey recipe on page 408 can be cooked separately in a terrine to be served with the goose. It is preferable, though, to substitute veal for pork when the stuffing is for a goose.

The goose is covered with buttered paper or foil and is cooked standing on a grid placed in the baking tin. This is important. If the goose is put straight into the tin it will stew in its fat and be greasy. After the first hour, take it from the oven and pour off most of the fat in the tin. Put in 2 to 3 lb. of partly cooked potatoes cut into quarters, all the same size. By the time the goose is cooked the potatoes should be tender and deliciously flavoured with the fat from the bird. Ten minutes before serving add to the potatoes 4 or 5 hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters, which will also become golden and slightly crackling from the goose fat. Arrange the potatoes and eggs, drained of excess fat, all round the goose on the serving dish, and put a bunch of watercress at each end.

Cooking time is 2
to 3 hours in a rather low oven, Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F., turned down to very low for the last hour, with the paper removed so that the skin becomes crisp and golden.

Good though the above method is, I cannot help agreeing with the author of one of my favourite French cookery books,
Clarisse, ou la Vieille Cuisinière,
that the goose, being to other poultry what pork is to butcher’s meat, is at its best served cold, like all very fat meats. And nowadays many people have sensibly come round to the idea of cooking their Christmas bird the day before and thereby avoiding some at least of the last minute confusion and anxiety. By the time a large bird is carved and served it is usually tepid anyway, and a properly cooled bird is altogether more desirable.

Be sure to save the fat from the goose. It is valuable for many dishes. As for the liver, there is little use in English cooks indulging in fantasies about
pâté de foie gras
or similar delicacies, for the liver of an English goose will weigh at the most about 4 oz., whereas those of the specially fattened geese of Alsace and the Périgord often weigh as much as 2 lb. or more. The dish of
foies de volaille au riz,
described on page 407, provides a good way of using up both goose and turkey livers.

A rich and savoury stew can be made from the goose giblets. This recipe is from south-western France.

Slice 2 or 3 large onions. Fry them very gently in a little goose fat. When they are pale golden, put in all the giblets except the liver, and a 6 oz. slice of salt pork or gammon. Let them take colour, add 3 or 4 sliced carrots, 3 large tomatoes, plenty of garlic, salt, pepper and a big bouquet of herbs.

Pour over
pint of heated stock. Bring to simmering point; cover the pot; cook in a very low oven for 2
to 3 hours. Serve with boiled white haricot beans, augmented if you like with a well-spiced, coarsely cut sausage of the type sold in delicatessen shops as Spanish sausage.