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Mock Duck

A steak rolled with breadcrumbs, onions, butter, suet, and seasonings, baked or stewed, served with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Mock Duck

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, onions, butter, suet, salt, pepper, and sage.

  3. Place the stuffing on the round steak and roll it up tightly.

  4. Tie the roll with string in several places.

Cook

  1. If the steak is tough, steam or stew it until tender.

  2. Roast in the oven until brown, or cook in a covered dish with water or stock around it.

Serve

  1. Serve with currant or other acid 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the outer wrapper that holds the stuffing and makes the main body of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and drippings, keeping the stuffing moist and lightly textured.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, moisture, and browning on the outside of the roll.
Suet or drippings
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing and meat moist during long cooking.
Onions
Add aroma and mild sweetness to the stuffing as they cook.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the steak. The roll must be tight and tied in several places so the stuffing stays inside and the slices hold their shape while cooking. A loose roll can open up and let the stuffing fall out.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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