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Roast Duck

A whole duck roasted with apples and onions, seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, served with watercress garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Dress and clean the duck.

  2. Stuff the duck with sliced apples and onions; this stuffing is for flavor only and will not be served.

  3. Truss the duck like a goose and place it on a rack in a dripping pan.

  4. Sprinkle the duck and the bottom of the pan with salt, pepper, and dredge with flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, basting every 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the duck to a hot platter and garnish with watercress.

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. Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + watercresstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together533 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Is the main protein; long roasting renders its fat and cooks the meat through.
Flour
Dusted over the skin, it helps the surface brown and crisp during roasting.
Apples
Stuffed inside for aroma; they flavor the bird but are not served.
Onions
Stuffed inside for aroma; they flavor the bird but are not served.

The step that matters

Basting every 15 minutes. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps the skin brown evenly while the fat renders. Skipping it can leave the skin dry and pale.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, flour, watercress):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, flour, watercress. 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.

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