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Roast Duckling with Cherry Sauce

Roast duckling served with a cherry sauce over rice and almonds.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,569 recipes mention both. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven350°F
Time2 hours

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Roast the duckling

  1. Prick skin of duckling with fork; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Place breast side up on rack in roasting pan.

  3. Roast at 350°F for 2 hours or until tender.

Make the cherry sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, combine broth, 1/3 cup syrup, kirsch, jelly, butter, salt, orange peel, and cornstarch dissolved in water.

  2. Cook, stirring, until clear and thickened.

  3. Add cherries and pineapple; heat through.

Serve

  1. Combine rice and almonds.

  2. Serve duck and sauce over beds of fluffy rice mixture.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + ricetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,569 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Orange + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Red currant + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Orange + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rice + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Duckling
Its fat renders during roasting, leaving the meat moist while the skin crisps.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, turning the liquid glossy and clear.
Dark sweet cherries
Provide the fruity sweetness and tartness that balance the rich duck.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce and helps it set as it cools.
Rice
Soaks up the sauce and gives a neutral, fluffy base for the duck.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until clear and thickened. Cornstarch must reach a full simmer to swell and thicken; undercooked starch leaves the sauce cloudy and thin.

Flavor stand-ins for the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, syrup, butter, orange, pineapple, rice, almond):

  1. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  2. Grapebetter flavor fit
  3. Peachbetter flavor fit
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, syrup, butter, orange, pineapple, rice, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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