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Wild Duck with Peas

A stew of wild duck, ham, butter, stock, flour, peas, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wild Duck with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the cold duck and ham with the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Fry until slightly browned.

  3. Dredge the mixture with flour and gradually pour in the stock.

  4. Once it boils, season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Place the peas in the center of a serving dish.

  2. Arrange the duck around the peas.

  3. Pour the sauce over the top.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Ham + peastop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together402 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold duck
Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated and browned in the butter.
Butter
Fat that browns the duck and ham and carries their flavor into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory flavor.
Peas
Provide the green vegetable centerpiece and a fresh, sweet flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the stock to the flour. Pour the stock in gradually so the flour dissolves evenly. Adding it all at once can leave lumps, so the sauce will not turn smooth and glossy.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, flour, pepper. 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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