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Braised Ducks

A braised duck dish cooked with bacon, carrot, onion, herbs, wine, and turnip garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Braised Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and braise

  1. Prepare the ducks as for roasting.

  2. Place ducks in a stew-pan with bacon, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley, and pepper.

  3. Cover with broth and add white wine.

  4. Simmer, basting frequently, until cooked through.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove ducks and keep warm.

  2. Cut turnip into pieces and fry in butter until browned.

  3. Cook turnip pieces in the duck braising liquid until tender.

  4. Strain and thicken the gravy.

  5. Serve ducks with gravy poured over and garnish with turnip pieces.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the meat that is braised slowly until cooked through and tender.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the braising liquid as it renders.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid, balancing the rich duck fat.
Turnip
Browned in butter for colour and nutty flavour, then softened in the braising liquid.
Broth
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the ducks and forms the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering until cooked through. Simmering gently with frequent basting keeps the meat moist while it cooks through. A hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and dries the surface, and too little liquid lets the duck scorch.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, butter. 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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