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Wild Ducks

Roasted wild ducks flavored with carrot, onion, salt, pepper, and claret, served hot with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Wild Ducks

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

  1. Parboil the wild ducks with a small peeled carrot inside each duck to absorb any unpleasant taste.

  2. If desired, you can use a whole peeled onion instead of the carrot.

  3. Alternatively, stuff each duck with a whole peeled onion, plenty of salt and pepper, and ⅓ cup of claret.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the ducks as you would tame ducks.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve hot with the gravy produced during cooking and a dish of currant jelly.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

Wild ducks
The main protein, which becomes tender and browned when roasted in a hot oven.
Claret
Adds acidity and aroma that flavour the duck and the gravy formed during cooking.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and flavour that seasons the duck from within.

The step that matters

Parboiling the ducks. Parboiling draws out strong, unpleasant flavours before roasting. Skipping or shortening it can leave the meat tasting gamey or off, since the flavour compounds are only partly removed by roasting.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, 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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