Canards Sauvages (Wild Duck)

Canards Sauvages à la Bigarrade (wild duck with bitter-orange sauce) teaches the discipline of stopping before lean game turns dry. The one true thing to know before touching the bird is this: wild duck wants fierce heat and very little time. It is roasted without barding, its skin burnished and its breast left frankly rosy, because another five minutes can turn delicacy into penance.

The old formula assumed an open hearth, a saucier tending clear stock, and enough hands to roast the birds, cut raw orange sections, and reduce the sauce at once. At home, a preheated cast-iron pan in the hottest oven replaces the fierce fire, while the Bigarrade base is prepared before the roast and finished with the pan juices during the birds' rest. Two young wild ducks feed four. The separate staff and stockpot never off the fire were brigade scaffolding; fierce heat, no bacon covering, an underdone centre, raw orange sections, and clear sauce served separately remain the dish itself. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The reward is dark, burnished skin over mineral, rosy meat, with a sauce that moves from caramel to vinegar to orange in one clean mouthful. Have the sauce base and orange suprêmes ready before the ducks enter the oven. The step that decides everything is the pull: check early, trust the thermometer, and never roast by hope.