Recipe no. 329 bis from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 160.
Ingredients
- duckling
- salt
- pepper
- nutmeg
- madeira
- veal
- udder
- foie gras
- ham
- truffles
- bacon
- onions
- carrots
- veal shank
- white wine
- water
- green peas
- flour
Preparation
- Preparing the ducklingSinged and carefully cleaned, bone it without piercing the skin; season it with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and, sprinkled with madeira, roll it up on a plate.
- Preparing the forcemeatWith 200 grams of lean veal flesh and 100 grams of blanched, cold veal udder, prepare a forcemeat well pounded in a mortar; add 50 grams of foie gras; season strongly and pass through a sieve.
- Enriching the forcemeatThen mix into this forcemeat 100 grams of ham cut into dice and 100 grams of truffles also cut.
- Stuffing and tyingPlace the whole in the middle of the duck, which you then sew up; then, rolled in a muslin cloth, as is done for a galantine, put it into a saucepan lined with strips of bacon, onions and carrots in rounds, a bouquet garni, and all around the chopped carcass as well as a few pieces of veal shank.
- Braising the ballotineLet it sweat covered, turning the ballotine from time to time, and as soon as the vegetables take on colour, moisten with a glass of white wine and half a litre of water; let it finish cooking, which takes about 45 minutes.
- Unwrapping and glazingThen take it out to unwrap it and put it into another saucepan. Skim off the fat from the pan juices, which you strain over the duck, and push it into the oven to glaze it, basting it from time to time with its own juices.
- Finishing with green peasThen bind these juices very lightly with a small spoonful of flour diluted in water; add the green peas, which you will have blanched, and let the whole simmer together for a further 5 to 6 minutes before serving.
Reboul's text
Singed and carefully cleaned, bone it without piercing the skin; season it with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and, sprinkled with madeira, roll it up on a plate.
With 200 grams of lean veal flesh and 100 grams of blanched, cold veal udder, prepare a forcemeat well pounded in a mortar; add 50 grams of foie gras; season strongly and pass through a sieve. Then mix into this forcemeat 100 grams of ham cut into dice and 100 grams of truffles also cut. Place the whole in the middle of the duck, which you then sew up; then, rolled in a muslin cloth, as is done for a galantine, put it into a saucepan lined with strips of bacon, onions and carrots in rounds, a bouquet garni, and all around the chopped carcass as well as a few pieces of veal shank. Let it sweat covered, turning the ballotine from time to time, and as soon as the vegetables take on colour, moisten with a glass of white wine and half a litre of water; let it finish cooking, which takes about 45 minutes. Then take it out to unwrap it and put it into another saucepan. Skim off the fat from the pan juices, which you strain over the duck, and push it into the oven to glaze it, basting it from time to time with its own juices. Then bind these juices very lightly with a small spoonful of flour diluted in water; add the green peas, which you will have blanched, and let the whole simmer together for a further 5 to 6 minutes before serving.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| desoussa | bone |
| assaboura | season |
| farço | forcemeat |
| mourtié | mortar |
| fege | foie gras |
| sedas | sieve |
| rabas | truffles |
| amaneu | bouquet garni |
| mitouna | simmer |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 329 bis, page 160. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.