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Sarcelles Roties

Roasted duck stuffed with parsley, basted with butter and served with lemon wedges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sarcelles Roties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the ducks and remove the innards.

  2. Stuff each duck with a bouquet of parsley.

  3. Truss the ducks and roast them over high heat.

Roast and serve

  1. Baste with butter while roasting for 14 to 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with lemon wedges.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the main protein, whose fat renders and crisps the skin during high-heat roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and keeping the surface moist while basting.
Parsley
Perfumes the bird from inside as it roasts, adding a fresh, herbal aroma.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the rich duck fat when served.

The step that matters

Baste with butter while roasting. Basting spreads melted butter over the skin, which promotes even browning and keeps the surface from drying out. Timing matters because the bird can overcook during the short high-heat roast.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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