Name: To Roast Wild Duck or Teal
Ingredients: wild duck or teal; coarse sea salt; water; current jelly; butter; thyme; parsley; pepper

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Roast Wild Duck or Teal

Ingredients

Directions

Dress the duck or teal and soak overnight in salt and water to remove the fishy taste.
In the morning, rinse the duck in fresh water, changing it several times.
Stuff the duck if desired, then place it in a roasting pan.
Prepare a gravy by heating butter in a pan.
Add thyme, parsley, and pepper to the gravy.
Roast the duck until done, then serve with current 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.

Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,758 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).