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Stewed Duck

A stewed duck with ham or salt pork, onion, sage, parsley, catsup, brown sugar, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Stewed Duck

Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Clean and divide the duck as for fricassee.

  2. Place in a saucepan with the minced ham or salt pork.

  3. Stew slowly, covered, for one hour.

  4. Stir in the chopped onion, sage, parsley, catsup, and black pepper.

  5. Stew until tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Add the brown sugar and browned flour mixed with cold water.

  2. Boil once and serve in a dish with green peas.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck (in the method)
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered stewing.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy as it boils.
Minced ham or salt pork
Adds salty, savoury fat that flavours the stewing liquid and the meat.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it softens into the stew.

The step that matters

Stew until tender. Duck is a tough, lean bird, so it needs long, gentle, covered simmering to break down connective tissue. Rushing with a hard boil toughens the meat and can leave it chewy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, sugar, flour, pepper, ham, sage):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, sugar, flour, pepper, ham, sage. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More stewed duck recipes

with Peas 4and Peas 3with Green Peas 3with Turnips 3 See all 45 →

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