Finishing Sauces with Giblets and Blood

Blood and giblets are also used to finish a special type of roast, called a salmis. To prepare a bird en salmis, the bird is first partially roasted, and the meat and giblets are removed from the carcass. The partially cooked giblets are then finely chopped and seasoned, the carcass is pressed in a duck press, and the resulting jus thickened with the chopped giblets. The meat is then gently stewed in the finished sauce. In France, salmis are prepared with special ducks and sometimes pigeons that have been strangled so that their blood remains in the meat. Since these are unavailable in the United States, the process can be circumvented by saving the blood when the animal is killed and adding it to the chopped giblets just before finishing the sauce.