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Roast Duok and Bird Pie

A roasted duck stuffed with seasoned breadcrumbs, served as a pie.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Roast Duok and Bird Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the duck

  1. Dress the duck by plucking, singeing, and washing it well.

  2. Rub the duck inside and out with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Rub the duck with a mixture of sage, marjoram, savory, and a dash of cayenne.

Stuff and roast

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, sage, marjoram, savory, black pepper, minced onion, butter, and enough cream to moisten.

  2. Stuff the duck, sew it up, and dredge with flour.

  3. Place the duck in a pan with water and red wine.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and roast the duck until rich brown, basting frequently.

Finish the gravy

  1. If the gravy is thin, thicken with flour and butter, then add catsup, sugar or currant jelly, and lemon juice.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Muscovy drake
Is the main protein, providing the meat and rich fat that the pie is built around.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and helps the flour thicken the gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the pan liquid that becomes the gravy.
Flour
Coats the outside to aid browning and later thickens the gravy.
Onion
Contributes aroma and savoury flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Roasting until rich brown, basting frequently. Browning comes from Maillard reactions and caramelisation on the skin and surface, which need dry heat. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist so it colours evenly without burning, and spreads fat for flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sage, marjoram, bread, butter, cream, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, marjoram, bread, butter, cream, egg. 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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