Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Some cooks do not stuff Goslings at all. Ducks. — Ducks do not need hanging; in fact, if required at once they may be cooked as soon as killed. A Duck requires from three-quarters of an hour to an hour to roast, and must be well basted. Make a good brown gravy of the giblets. The old-fashioned stuffing for a Duck was a coarse moist composition of raw sage leaves, half-cooked onions and apples, and either butter or suet. The stuffing given at page 203 is firm, mild, and delicate. Do not use the livers of the Ducks with the stuffing, but add them to the giblets. Boiled Duck, or Caneton à l'Orange. — (Mrs. G. W. Earle.) — Take a good, fat, tame Duck, clean it out and put the liver apart. Singe the Duck, and clean it very carefully. Then mince the liver with a little onion and some grated bacon or ham, add salt and pepper. Put the stuffing inside the Duck. Now close the opening of the Duck ; leave the skin of the neck long, and bring it round under the Duck to close the tail. Spread on the table a clean pudding-cloth, and roll the Duck in this rather tightly to preserve the shape. Tie up the two ends of the cloth with string. Put into a stewpan with boiling salted water. Continue to boil it quietly for one hour for an BOILED DUCK ordinary Duck, one hour and ten minutes if large. It will then be cooked, and ought to be a good pink colour. (Chickens boiled in the same way are excellent.) Take three oranges, peel them with a spoon, cut the peel in quarters, taking out all the white. Shred the peel as if for Julienne soup, put it into water for seven or eight minutes, and drain it on a cloth. Take the rest of the oranges, removing all the white, and put the pulp into a good reduced stock half glazed. Add two or three spoonfuls of Sauce Espagnole (see page 134) and a little red wine — port is best. Pass through a sieve, and then add the chips of orange peel. Unpack the Duck, serve on a dish, surround with pieces of orange, put a little sauce over the Duck and the rest in a sauce-boat. Duck and Green Peas, — Truss the Duck for roasting, put the liver and a sliced onion inside it, but do not stuff it. Roast it for twenty minutes. Then put it in a stewpan with a pint of beef stock, four blanched sage leaves and a dessertspoonful of blanched mint, pepper and salt, and half an onion sliced. Simmer for a quarter of an hour, and skim off all the fat. Add a quart of shelled green peas (not young peas), cover the pan closely, and simmer for twenty or twenty-five minutes more. Give it one boil up, lay the Duck on a large dish, and pour the peas and broth just as they are round it. The herbs and onion should be in a muslin bag, and must be taken out just before serving.