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To Stew Ducks

A stew of roasted duck, onions, herbs, beef gravy, peas, and port wine, finished with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Stew Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Roast and stew the duck

  1. Roast the duck for 20 minutes.

  2. Place the duck in a stewpan with the sliced onion, sage, mint, sweet herbs, and beef gravy.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Let it stew gently for 20 minutes.

  5. Carefully remove the duck and keep it warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy into a clean stewpan.

  2. Heat the strained gravy.

  3. Add the duck and green peas to the gravy.

  4. Let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Mix in the flour and butter.

  6. Add the port wine before serving.

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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Sage + minttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together138 recipes

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

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Green peas
Add body, sweetness and colour to the stew.

The step that matters

Mix in the flour and butter. Flour needs to be cooked into the hot liquid and fat so it dissolves smoothly and thickens without lumps or a raw starchy taste.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, sage, beef, pepper, peas, flour, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sage, beef, pepper, peas, flour, butter. 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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