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Roast Duck

A whole duck roasted with salt, pepper, and flour, optionally stuffed with apples, onions, or celery, served with grape or currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Pick, singe, draw, and wash the duck.

  2. Wipe the duck, truss it, and dredge with salt, pepper, and flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes if young.

  2. For full-grown ducks, roast for about 1 hour, basting every 10 minutes.

  3. Make a giblet gravy and serve with grape or currant jelly.

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. Apple + grapetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Pepper + grapetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Celery + grapetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Is the main protein; its fat renders during roasting, keeping the meat moist and crisping the skin.
Flour
Dusted on the bird, it helps the skin brown and dry slightly for a crisper finish.

The step that matters

Roasting time by age of duck. A young duck cooks in about 30 minutes, while a full-grown bird needs about 1 hour. Checking by age prevents overcooking tender young birds or undercooking tougher mature ones.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, celery, grape):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, celery, grape. 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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