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Roast Duck

Roast Duck (Wild) is a savory dish of parboiled and roasted wild ducks with breadcrumbs, herbs, and a currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the ducks with the carrot for flavor, then discard the carrot.

  2. Soak the ducks in fresh water for 30 minutes.

  3. Stuff the ducks with breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, sage, and onion if using.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the ducks until brown and tender, basting for half the time with butter and water, then with the drippings.

  2. After removing the ducks, add currant jelly and cayenne to the gravy, thicken with brown flour, and serve in a tureen.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together480 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 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

Wild ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through parboiling and slow roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the skin brown during basting.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices and fat inside the cavity, keeping the stuffing moist and lightly textured.
Brown flour
Thickens the drippings into a gravy by swelling with liquid as it heats.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Roast the ducks until brown and tender, basting. Basting with butter, water and then drippings keeps the surface moist while fat renders and browns the skin. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs dry heat on the surface, so over-basting can stall colour.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, pepper, sage, butter, currant, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, pepper, sage, butter, currant, 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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