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Roast Wild Duck

Roasted wild duck flavored with Worcestershire sauce, mushroom catsup, mustard, and spices, served with optional carrot, onion, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Wild 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. Keep the wild duck for several days before dressing if the weather is cold.

  2. Optionally, parboil the duck with a small peeled carrot or onion to reduce fishy flavor before roasting.

Roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake the duck for 5-10 minutes without basting to retain the gravy.

  3. Baste frequently with butter and water for 30-40 minutes until cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine Worcestershire sauce, mushroom catsup, salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice in a small saucepan.

  2. Heat the sauce, stir in prepared mustard, and pour into a hot gravy boat.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the main meat, which is roasted until cooked through.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the sauce.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savory umami flavor to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavor and a little tang to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Withhold basting during the first roasting stage. Skipping basting at the start lets the skin set and the juices concentrate, which helps retain the gravy. Frequent basting later adds moisture and browning as the duck finishes cooking.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, mushroom, pepper, lemon, mustard, onion, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, mushroom, pepper, lemon, mustard, onion, 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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