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Mock Duck

A roast beef dish prepared with butter, flour, potatoes, and steaks, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Mock Duck

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Dredge the roast beef with salt and flour.

  2. Prepare the flank of beef for mock duck.

  3. Peel the potatoes.

  4. Boil the potatoes until partially cooked.

  5. Drain the potatoes.

Roast and broil

  1. Place the roast beef in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Place the potatoes on a rack with the roast.

  3. Broil the steaks when the fire is hot and clear.

  4. Heat a frying pan.

  5. Dry fry the roast when it is almost done.

Finish and serve

  1. Prepare thickening for the roast beef gravy.

  2. Prepare hot platters for the steaks with butter, salt, and pepper.

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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its meaty flavour and chewy texture when cooked.
Flour
Coats the roast and later thickens the gravy, helping it brown and cling to the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the steaks as they are served on hot platters.
Potatoes
Partly cooked before roasting so they soften and absorb flavour from the roast.

The step that matters

Dry fry the roast when it is almost done. Searing near the end of cooking browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding colour and savoury flavour. Too long over high heat can dry out the meat.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, 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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