Skip to main content
Main

Duck, Wild, with Port Wine

A roasted wild duck served with a port wine and red currant jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Watercress and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 533 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Duck, Wild, with Port Wine

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Roast the duck

  1. Truss the duck.

  2. Cover the duck with the strip of fat pork and the sheet of paper.

  3. Cook the duck in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion in butter with the bouquet garni.

  2. Moisten the sauce with the stock and reduce to a demi-glace.

  3. Boil the sauce and skim.

  4. Strain the sauce.

  5. Add the red currant jelly and port wine to the sauce.

  6. Bring the sauce to a boil.

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. Watercress + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together533 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Red currant + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Watercress + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the meat that is roasted and served with the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the reduced sauce.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity note that balances the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that reduces into a concentrated demi-glace.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries the flavour of the aromatics.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and body to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil. Boiling after adding the port and jelly can over-concentrate or dull the flavour; the sauce should be heated just enough to combine and serve hot.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, watercress, potato chip, onion, butter, port wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, watercress, potato chip, onion, butter, port wine. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes