Wild duck galantine

Ingredients for 12 servings:

• 1 duck(s), female (smaller than the males)
• 2 wild ducks
• 125 g pork, lean
• 250 g bacon, fresh, unsmoked
• 10 g salt (pie salt)
• 1 orange(s), untreated
• 5 sage leaves
• ½ tsp mugwort
• 2 tbsp oil
• 40 g pistachios, 200 g black trumpet nuts
• 500 g cranberries
• 150 ml orange juice
• 150 ml red wine
• 90 g brown cane sugar
• 1 anise (star anise)
• 1 stalk(s) cinnamon
• Mustard powder, to taste

Instructions

Working time approx. 2 hours 30 minutes; Rest period approx. 1 day; Total time approx. 1 day 2 hours 30 minutes

Bone the duck from the back. Cut off the neck and rump. Remove the leg and wing bones and pull them through. The duck is now lying flat with the skin on the worktop, with all the meat on top. Press the meat down so that it is as evenly distributed as possible. Cover any exposed skin with the small fillets. Remove the breasts from the wild ducks and remove all the meat. Make a broth from half of the boned duck bones with a bouquet garni, in which to cook the galantine. Finely chop the other half of the bones and briefly simmer with roasted vegetables, bouquet garni, and spices. Strain through a sieve to make a thick jus. Season two wild duck breasts with pâté salt, sear briefly on all sides in hot oil, remove, and drain the oil. Remove all skin and tendons from the remaining wild duck meat and cut into strips, as well as the pork and bacon. Sprinkle with the pâté salt and spices. Chill. Run the meat through the finest disk of the meat grinder twice, but the bacon only once. Chill again. Gradually work the bacon into the stuffing, finally adding enough duck jus to create a smooth but still compact stuffing. This stuffing should really be passed through a sieve at this point. Anyone who has done this before knows what a chore it is. If you have worked carefully when boneing the meat and trimmed away as many tendons as possible, you can safely skip this step. Sort the black trumpets and clean them thoroughly. Fry them in a little butter. Remove them, drain slightly on kitchen paper, and roughly chop. Roughly chop the pistachios. Mix the pistachios and black trumpets into the stuffing. Spread about two-thirds of the stuffing on the boned duck, place the breasts under the legs, brush with about 2 tablespoons of duck jus, and cover with the remaining stuffing. Roll the duck from the rump to the neck, wrap in roasting foil, and tie. Tie with kitchen string like a rolled roast. Heat the duck stock in a suitable pot (I used a fish pot) to 80°C, add the galantine, and cook according to its weight. The cooking time is 40 minutes per kg of galantine at 80°C. I placed the pot in the oven and checked the temperature of the stock with a thermometer. (At around 135°C fan-assisted oven, the temperature of the stock remains relatively constant at 80°C.) Do not exceed the cooking time. You can check whether the galantine is cooked through using the needle test. Allow the galantine to cool in the stock and refrigerate for at least 12 hours. Then remove it from the stock, carefully rinse off any rendered fat under warm running water, and dry it. For the cranberry sauce, sort a bag of cranberries and bring to a boil with 150ml orange juice, 150ml red wine, 90g brown sugar, a star anise, and a cinnamon stick. Simmer until syrupy. (I then added a little mustard powder to taste, but that’s certainly a matter of taste.) Serve cold with the galantine.