Soufflé de Caneton Rouennais

Soufflé de Caneton Rouennais (Rouen duckling rebuilt with a foie gras mousseline) teaches one severe and useful lesson: a mousseline, a smooth and light forcemeat, stays delicate only while it stays cold. Let the duck meat or foie gras warm under the blade and the fat separates, leaving a grainy filling where there should be silk.

The brigade version assumes Poëlings complete at one station, a saucier holding the Rouennaise sauce over a stockpot that never goes cold, a second half-duckling waiting for the forcemeat, and several hands to bone the cooked bird while it is warm. It needs no salamander; the finish is a gentle covered poach. For four, the second half-duckling becomes 12 ounces of boneless duck meat, a processor and sieve replace the mortar work, and a covered oval casserole in a bain-marie replaces the great poaching pan. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Ready-baked tartlet shells replace the pastry station because making four tiny crusts is brigade scaffolding. The cold mousseline, the hollowed duck case, the paper band, the breast slices, and the Rouennaise sauce are the dish itself, so they stay. Before you touch the processor, chill its bowl, the duck meat, the liver, and both portions of foie gras. That cold is what decides the result.