TO RAGOUT A DUCK WHOLE.
933. INGREDIENTS.—1 large duck, pepper and salt to taste, good beef gravy, 2 onions sliced, 4 sage-leaves, a few leaves of lemon thyme, thickening of butter and flour.
Mode.—After having emptied and singed the duck, season it inside with pepper and salt, and truss it. Roast it before a clear fire for about 20 minutes, and let it acquire a nice brown colour. Put it into a stewpan with sufficient well-seasoned beef gravy to cover it; slice and fry the onions, and add these, with the sage-leaves and lemon thyme, both of which should be finely minced, to the stock. Simmer gently until the duck is tender; strain, skim, and thicken the gravy with a little butter and flour; boil it up, pour over the duck, and serve. When in season, about, 1-1/2 pint of young green peas, boiled separately, and put in the ragoût, very much improve this dish.
Time.—20 minutes to roast the duck; 20 minutes to stew it.
Average cost, from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. each.
Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons.
Seasonable from November to February; ducklings from April to August.
[Illustration: BUENOS AYRES DUCKS.]
THE BUENOS AYRES DUCK.—The Buenos Ayres duck is of East-Indian birth, and is chiefly valuable as an ornament; for we suppose one would as soon think of picking a Chinese teal for luncheon, or a gold fish for breakfast, as to consign the handsome Buenos Ayres to the spit. The prevailing colour of this bird is black, with a metallic lustre, and a gleaming of blue steel about its breast and wings.
VARIETIES OF DUCKS.—Naturalists count nearly a hundred different species of ducks; and there is no doubt that the intending keeper of these harmless and profitable birds may easily take his choice from amongst twenty different sorts. There is, however, so little difference in the various members of the family, either as regards hardiness, laying, or hatching, that the most incompetent fancier or breeder may indulge his taste without danger of making a bad bargain. In connection with their value for table, light-coloured ducks are always of milder flavour than those that are dark-coloured, the white Aylesbury's being general favourites. Ducks reared exclusively on vegetable diet will have a whiter and more delicate flesh than those allowed to feed on animal offal; while the flesh of birds fattened on the latter food, will be firmer than that of those which have only partaken of food of a vegetable nature.