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Hashed Cold Duck

A dish of cooked duck and thinly sliced cold ham simmered in butter, flour, water, and Madeira wine, served with buttered green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hashed Cold Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Season the duck pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. In a stew pan, layer the duck and sliced ham.

  3. Add the butter rolled in flour and enough water to prevent burning.

  4. Bring to a boil, then add the Madeira wine.

  5. Remove from heat immediately after adding the wine.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled and buttered 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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  5. Ham + madeira winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cooked duck
Provides the main meat and flavour of the dish.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce while butter adds richness.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately after adding the wine. Madeira is added at the end so its aroma stays fresh; prolonged boiling drives off volatile aromatic compounds and can make the sauce taste flat or harsh.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ham, butter, flour, madeira wine):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ham, butter, flour, madeira wine. 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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