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Stewed Ducks and Olives

A stew of duck simmered in butter gravy with herbs, seasonings, and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,263 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Ducks and Olives

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the duck in butter in a pan.

  2. Make gravy in the same pan with herbs and seasonings.

  3. Simmer the duck in the gravy until tender.

  4. Strain the gravy and add stoned olives.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main protein and rich fat that flavours the dish as it cooks.
Butter
Browns the duck surface, adding colour and a nutty, savoury flavour.
Stoned olives
Add briny, salty acidity that cuts through the richness of the duck and gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer the duck until tender. Duck is fatty and muscular, so it needs gentle, long simmering in liquid to break down connective tissue. Rushing this leaves the meat tough, and a rolling boil can toughen it further.

“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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