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Dessert

French Dishes

A collection of French recipes for various duck and bird dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Caron, Pierre, fl. 1886-1899 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 85,512 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

French Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the reed-birds

  1. Prepare snipe as for woodcocks, robins, and other small birds.

  2. Take two dozen reed-birds and put them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, a pinch of salt and pepper.

  3. Toss them in the pan over a quick fire for about three minutes.

  4. Put them on a dish with pieces of toast.

  5. Add a wineglass of consomme to the butter in the saucepan.

  6. Boil a moment, strain, add the juice of a lemon, and pour over the reed-birds.

  7. Roast the reed-birds on a good fire for four to five minutes.

Roast the canvas-back ducks

  1. Prepare and clean four canvas-back ducks.

  2. Pass them over lighted alcohol to singe the hair.

  3. Wash them well and do not cut off the heads.

  4. Pass a skewer through the thighs and under the wings.

  5. Put them before the fire for fifteen minutes to roast.

  6. Take out the skewers, garnish with water-cresses, and serve with currant jelly.

Broil the red-head ducks

  1. Prepare and cook red-head ducks as described above.

  2. Clean and wash three red-head ducks.

  3. Split them in two for broiling.

  4. Broil until well-colored on both sides.

  5. Serve with sauce poivrade, sauce piquante, or other sharp sauces.

Make the salmi

  1. Take the remains of three red-head ducks, or two whole cold red-head ducks, cut up in pieces.

  2. Finish as for salmi of partridge (Art. 308).

  3. Prepare mallard, teal, and other wild ducks as described above; roast them depending on size.

By Caron, Pierre, fl. 1886-1899. 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together85,512 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

Reed-birds
Small birds that are cooked quickly over high heat, so they stay tender and juicy.
Butter
Enriches the pan and carries flavour, helping the birds brown and stay moist.
Consomme
Adds savoury liquid that deglazes the pan and forms the base of the sauce.
Lemon juice (in the method)
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and consomme sauce.
Canvas-back ducks
Rich dark meat that roasts well before the fire, rendering fat under the skin.
Red-head ducks
Split and broiled so the meat browns evenly on both sides.

The step that matters

Broiling the split red-head ducks until well-colored on both sides. Split ducks cook fast over direct heat, so the surface can scorch before the thick meat is cooked through. Turning them and watching colour, rather than time alone, keeps the skin crisp and the meat done.

“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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