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To Fricassee Ducks

A duck fricassee cooked with sweet butter, onions, thyme, claret, bacon, spinach, parsley, eggs, pepper, nutmeg, and drawn butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Fricassee Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Quarter the ducks and beat them with the back of a cleaver.

  2. Dry the ducks well and fry them in sweet butter.

  3. When almost fried, add shredded onions and thyme.

  4. Pour in a little claret and add thin slices of bacon, spinach, and parsley.

Finish and serve

  1. In a dish, break the yolks of three eggs and mix with pepper and nutmeg.

  2. Toss the egg mixture with a ladleful of drawn butter and pour over the ducks.

  3. Lay the bacon on top and 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which is beaten and fried until tender and browned.
Sweet butter
Fat for frying the ducks, adding richness and golden browning.
Eggs
Egg yolks mixed with butter and poured over the ducks, setting into a rich, binding coating.
Claret
Wine that adds acidity and depth to the sauce as the ducks cook.
Bacon
Thin slices add savoury, smoky fat that flavours the dish.
Onions
Shredded onions soften and add sweetness and savoury depth.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture over the ducks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; if the mixture is added to a very hot pan or cooked too long, it can scramble rather than form a smooth, creamy coating.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, thyme, spinach, parsley, egg, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, thyme, spinach, parsley, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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