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Roast Wild Duck

Roast Wild Duck is a whole duck roasted with onion, salt, pepper, claret, and served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Wild Duck

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 the duck

  1. Pluck and singe the duck, then wipe it with a wet towel.

  2. Draw the duck carefully and skewer the legs and wings in place.

  3. Stuff the duck with the onion, salt, pepper, and claret.

  4. Place the duck in a dripping pan just large enough to hold it.

Roast and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes if medium size, or 20 minutes if large.

  2. Serve hot with the gravy 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Onion + curranttop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the rich, fatty meat that is the centre of the dish.
Claret
Adds acidity and aroma that moisten and flavour the meat from inside.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness that balance the richness of the roasted duck.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven for the stated time. A hot oven browns and crisps the skin while cooking the meat through. Wild duck is lean and dries out quickly, so timing by size matters for juiciness.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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