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Roast Duck

A duck stuffed with cabbage, pepper, garlic, and butter, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the duck by cleaning and washing it well.

  2. Slice the heart of the cabbage into fine long strips, then wash and drain the cabbage.

  3. Shake the cabbage in a towel to keep the leaves crisp.

Stuff and roast

  1. Combine the cabbage, pepper, salt, garlic, and butter in a bowl and mix well.

  2. Stuff the duck with the cabbage mixture.

  3. Bake or roast the duck until fully cooked.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Duck
Provides the main protein and rich fat that bastes the meat as it roasts.
Cabbage
Adds moisture and a mild, tender filling that steams inside the bird.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and promotes browning on the outside of the duck.
Garlic
Contributes aroma and savory pungency that mellows during roasting.

The step that matters

Roast until fully cooked. Duck is dense and fatty, and the stuffing slows heat reaching the center. Cooking until fully done ensures the meat is safe to eat, and the cabbage filling must reach the same temperature.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, clove, garlic, butter, potato, mint):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Broccolifits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, clove, garlic, butter, potato, mint. 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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