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Roast Ducklings

Roast ducklings stuffed with mashed potatoes, almonds, and onions, served with a currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Ducklings

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ducklings

  1. Whip the mashed potatoes with butter and cream until creamy.

  2. Season the mixture with celery salt and white pepper, then mix in the chopped almonds.

  3. Stuff the cleaned ducklings with the mixture, leaving them loose.

  4. Truss the legs and wings with cotton twine.

  5. Place the ducklings on a roasting rack, rub the breast with the split onion, and dust with pepper, salt, and flour.

Roast

  1. Add boiling water to the pan and cover.

  2. Roast in a very hot oven (400°F) for the first 15 minutes.

  3. Switch to a moderate oven (350°F) and cook covered for 10 minutes per pound.

  4. Uncover, baste with gravy and butter, dredge with flour, and brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim fat from the gravy, thicken with browned flour mixed with currant jelly, and serve in a gravy boat.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Bind the almond stuffing and keep the filling moist and soft during roasting.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the skin brown as the ducklings roast.
Almonds
Add texture and nutty flavour to the stuffing.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper colour and flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tartness that balances the rich duck fat.

The step that matters

Skim fat from the gravy. Duck releases a lot of fat during roasting. Removing most of it before thickening keeps the gravy light and stops it from tasting greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, cream, celery, almond, onion, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, cream, celery, almond, onion, 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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