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Duck, Stewed, with Green Peas

A stew of duck simmered with green peas, bacon, onions, herbs, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Duck, Stewed, with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Cut the rind from the bacon and divide it into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Fry the bacon in butter until light brown.

  3. Dredge the bacon in flour and stir for 3 minutes.

  4. Add the broth, onion, sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  5. Fry or roast the duck for 10 minutes to color it.

  6. Add the duck to the stew pan and cook slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until tender.

Cook the peas and serve

  1. Meanwhile, stew the peas in butter until cooked.

  2. Serve the duck and peas on a hot dish, pouring over strained and thickened gravy.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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

Duck
Slow stewing turns the tough meat tender while it releases flavor into the gravy.
Lean bacon
Rendered fat and savory flavor season the stew and the flour-thickened gravy.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a gravy once it is stirred with the bacon fat.
Green peas
Provide sweetness and a soft, tender texture alongside the rich duck.

The step that matters

Dredging the bacon in flour and stirring. Flour must be cooked in the bacon fat for a few minutes before liquid is added; this removes raw starch taste and lets the flour thicken the broth smoothly rather than forming lumps.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, clove, 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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