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Roast Wild Duck

A roasted wild duck served with a sauce of Worcestershire, mushroom ketchup, mustard, and lemon, optionally accompanied by currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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. Do not dress the wild duck too soon after killing; keep it for several days in cold weather.

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

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

Roast

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

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

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, combine Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice in a small saucepan.

  2. Heat the sauce, then remove from heat and stir in prepared mustard.

  3. Pour the sauce into a hot gravy boat.

  4. Serve on a very hot dish with a cut lemon.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Is the main protein; its lean meat cooks through and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the skin brown as the duck is basted.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and cuts the fattiness of the duck.

The step that matters

Bake without basting at first, then baste. Basting too early can wash away and cool the surface before it sets, so the first few minutes are left alone. Frequent basting later keeps the meat moist and helps the skin brown.

Swap the carrot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, pepper, lemon, mustard. 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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