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Fillets of Duckling, Macedoine

Duck fillets served with a sauce of Bigarade and a macédoine of vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fillets of Duckling, Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Singe, draw, and wash ducklings, then steam for 10 minutes.

  2. Cool the ducklings and cut into four fillets.

Make the sauce

  1. Roast the backbones with vegetables until brown.

  2. Moisten the backbones and vegetables with Bigarade sauce.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Strain over the cooked macédoine of vegetables.

Roast and serve

  1. Season the fillets with salt, pepper, powdered sage, and thyme.

  2. Roll the fillets in flour and arrange them in a buttered baking pan.

  3. Roast the fillets and baste until brown and frothy.

  4. Serve the fillets on a crouton garnished with macédoine in sauce.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Ducklings
Provide the meat for the fillets, which cook through and brown on the outside.
Flour
Coats the fillets so the surface browns and crisps during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the baking pan, helping the fillets brown and taste rich.
Bigarade sauce
Adds bright acidity and flavor to the backbones and vegetables that become the sauce.

The step that matters

Roast the fillets and baste until brown and frothy. Basting spreads the fat and juices over the surface, which helps the skin brown evenly and stay crisp. Too little basting or heat can leave the surface pale and greasy.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, sage, flour, butter. 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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