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Wild Duck

A roasted wild duck seasoned with onion, cranberries, butter, salt, pepper, served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the duck as you would a chicken.

  2. Rub the breast with the onion.

  3. Place a few raw cranberries inside to mask the fishy odor.

  4. Add butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper inside the duck.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the duck as you would a chicken, but do not stuff it.

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

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Main protein; roasting turns the meat tender and browned.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the meat stay juicy and browned.
Onion
Rubbed on the breast to add a mild aromatic flavor.
Raw cranberries
Placed inside to mask the fishy odor of the wild duck.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich meat.

The step that matters

Do not stuff the duck. Stuffing insulates the cavity, so the bird cooks unevenly: the centre can stay underdone while the outside overcooks.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, 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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