Skip to main content
Main

Wild Duck Roast

A roast duck prepared with gravy, wine sauce, flour, butter, lemons, salt, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Wild Duck Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Truss the duck for roasting.

  2. In a deep baking dish, cover the bottom with boiling water and add the salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the duck in the water and bake for 10 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. Drain the duck, sprinkle lightly with flour, and baste well with hot butter.

  3. Roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 20 minutes, basting frequently.

  4. Serve the duck slightly under-done to retain flavor.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Port wine + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and butter 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

Wild duck
Provides the meat that is cooked and served as the main dish.
Flour
Light dusting helps the skin brown and crisp during roasting.
Butter
Basting with hot butter adds fat that promotes browning and rich flavor.
Bigarade or port wine sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that complements the rich duck meat.

The step that matters

Serving slightly under-done. Duck breast is best served slightly pink because overcooking toughens the proteins and dries the meat, so timing the roast matters.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, flour, 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.

More roasted duck recipes

with Stuffing 4with Head 3 See all 113 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes