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To Roast Ducks and Geese

A method for roasting a duck or goose with onion, sage, parsley, and flour, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast Ducks and Geese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Stuff the duck or goose with the grated onion, sage, and parsley.

  3. Rub the outside and inside with salt, pepper, and flour.

Roast

  1. Place the bird breast-side down in a roasting pan with enough water to cover the bottom.

  2. Baste often while roasting.

  3. Once browned on the back, turn the bird over to finish roasting breast-side up.

  4. Roast for 20 minutes per pound.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy made from chopped giblets.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Duck or goose
Provides the main meat and fat that renders and crisps during roasting.
Flour
Dusted on the skin to help it brown and crisp in the oven.
Grated onion
Stuffed inside the bird to add aroma and moisture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Turning the bird breast-side up. Turning the bird over after the back has browned lets the breast cook through and brown evenly. Starting breast-side down keeps the breast moist while the fat renders out of the back.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, parsley, pepper, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, parsley, pepper, flour. 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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