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Roast Duck and Olive Sauce

Roast duck served with a sauce made from browned butter, flour, stock, and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,716 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Roast Duck and Olive Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ducks

  1. Dress, clean, and truss the ducks.

  2. Place ducks on a rack in a dripping pan.

  3. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Cover the breast with a thin slice of fat salt pork.

Roast

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.

Make the olive sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt the butter in a pan and stir until browned.

  2. Add the flour and gradually pour in the brown stock.

  3. Cover the olives with boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Drain the olives and add them to the sauce.

  5. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

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. Pork + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,716 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 meat, which is roasted until cooked through and tender.
Butter
Browned in the pan to add nutty flavour to the sauce base.
Flour
Mixed with the browned butter to thicken the sauce.
Brown stock
Liquid that forms the body of the sauce as it is poured in gradually.
Olives
Add briny, savoury flavour and texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually pouring in the brown stock. Adding the stock slowly to the butter and flour mixture lets the starch dissolve and swell evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thickened sauce.

“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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