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Roast Duck

A whole duck roasted with flour, salt pork, optional apple stuffing, served with acid sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,581 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Truss the duck as you would a chicken.

  2. Place the duck in a dripping pan on a rack.

  3. Dredge the duck with flour and place the salt pork on the breast.

  4. If desired, stuff the duck with quartered apples before roasting.

Roast and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes, basting often.

  2. Domestic ducks require twice the time to roast as wild ducks.

  3. Serve with an acid sauce.

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. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + porktop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and pork barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
The main protein, which the roasting turns tender and cooks through.
Flour
Dusted on the skin to help it brown and crisp in the oven.
Salt pork
Lays fat over the breast, adding moisture and rich flavor as it renders.
Apples
Optional stuffing that adds aroma and a mild sweetness to the cavity.

The step that matters

Basting often during baking. Duck has a lot of fat under the skin. Regular basting helps keep the meat moist while the fat renders and the skin browns evenly.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pork, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pork, sauce. 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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