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To Stew Ducks

A stew of young ducks simmered with wine, herbs, and walnut ketchup, finished with a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce 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 ↓

To Stew Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Lard the ducks on each side of the breast.

  2. Dust the ducks with flour and brown them before the fire.

Stew

  1. Place the ducks in a stew pan with water, red wine, walnut ketchup, browning sauce, anchovy, lemon, garlic, and sweet herbs.

  2. Let the ducks stew slowly for 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. Remove the ducks and keep them hot.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Skim off the fat from the gravy and strain it through a fine sieve.

  2. Add a few morels and truffles to the gravy and boil until reduced to about ½ pint.

  3. Pour the gravy over the ducks and serve.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Young ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Flour
Dusting helps the duck surface brown and thickens the gravy slightly.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.
Anchovy
Dissolves into the liquid, adding savoury depth without a fishy taste.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the ducks before the stew. Browning floflour-dusted duck creates Maillard flavour and colour that carry into the gravy. Pale ducks give a flat, washed-out sauce, so the surface must be well browned before the liquid goes in.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, red wine, walnut, ketchup, sauce, anchovy, clove):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, red wine, walnut, ketchup, sauce, anchovy, clove. 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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