MALLARD IMAGINAIRE

  This is a fancy French recipe for roast duck, only without the duck.  Well, when I was girl there weren't a lot of meat about.  They would have been fine times for vegimetarians.  I'm talking about what they call 'butcher's meat'.  So there was loads of recipes without no meat at all in them.  Like Steak Ta-ta, which was very similar but with different trimmings.  Another thing you could do was to say there'd be Yorkshire pudding, and when they asked where it was you said it was in Yorkshire, of course.  A good housewife have to be clever and hope they're stupid, which they usually are

INGREDIENTS

No duck.

  METHOD

Prepare all the trimmings as usual.

  TIP

It's very handy if someone should turn up with a duck, just at the right moment. Of course, that won't be butcher's meat either.  But I don't ask where the menfolk get such things from, because least said soonest mended and careless talk cost lives.  And we can't afford anything which costs.  Let's just say that the English name for this recipe is Poached Duck, and leave it at that.

Dot Kipper's Handy Household Hints is now, mercifully, out of print.  It was originally published by Sodder and Roughton.