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How to Cook Wild Ducks

Roasted wild ducks served with duck gravy, celery, fried hominy, or currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and currant work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 159 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

How to Cook Wild Ducks

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean and prepare the ducks.

Roast

  1. Place them in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cook for 18 to 20 minutes.

  3. To check doneness, stick a fork into the duck; if red juice runs out, cook longer.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy from the ducks, celery, fried hominy, 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. Celery + curranttop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild ducks
Provide the main meat, which is roasted in a very hot oven until cooked through.
Gravy from the ducks
Adds moisture and rich savory flavor to the serving.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich, fatty duck meat.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a fork. Wild duck is lean and easily overcooked, which makes it dry and tough. Checking for red juice at the end of the cooking time helps you judge when the meat is done, so you can cook it longer only if needed.

“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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