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Saute of Duck with Olives

A sautéed duck served with olives in a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,456 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Saute of Duck with Olives

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Singe, draw, wash, and steam the duck for 30 minutes.

  2. Season the duck with salt and pepper, then brush with melted butter.

  3. Roll the duck in flour and quickly brown it in a hot oven.

  4. Remove the duck and cut it into portions.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the minced onion in butter until lightly browned.

  2. Add flour to the onion to form a roux, then moisten with poultry stock.

  3. Boil the mixture and skim off any foam.

  4. Add the duck portions and olives, then simmer until the duck is tender.

  5. Season the sauce and finish with orange juice and port wine.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with croutons.

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. Olive + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through simmering in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the duck for browning and thickens the onion and stock into a roux-based sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the duck brown while carrying flavour into the onion.
Onion
Builds savoury depth as it browns gently in butter before the stock is added.
Poultry stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens with the roux and carries the flavour.
Olives
Add a salty, briny flavour that cuts through the richness of the duck.

The step that matters

Roll the duck in flour and quickly brown it in a hot oven. A hot oven and short browning time set the flour coating and colour the skin without overcooking the meat, which then finishes tender in the simmering sauce.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, onion, olive, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, onion, olive, 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.

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