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Roast Ducks

Roast Ducks is a dish of two ducks stuffed with egg and onion, roasted and served with gravy, currant jelly, and green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,460 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the ducks carefully.

  2. Make a stuffing with the egg and onion, insert it into the ducks, and sew them up completely.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the ducks for about 1 hour, basting them well.

  2. A few minutes before serving, dredge the ducks lightly with flour to make them froth and look plump.

  3. Serve hot with a good brown gravy poured over them, accompanied by currant jelly and green peas if in season.

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 + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peastop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,837 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + peastop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Ducks
Provide the main protein and fat that cook down and flavour the dish.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the bird.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the stuffing as it cooks.
Flour
Dusted on at the end, it helps the skin froth and look plump.

The step that matters

Dredging the ducks with flour before serving. Flour dusted on too early can become pasty or burn in the oven's heat. Applying it only a few minutes before serving lets it puff and whiten the skin briefly, so the bird looks plump and appealing.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, onion, flour, peas):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Pumpkinfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, onion, flour, peas. 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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