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Ragout of Duck and Green Peas

A savory ragout made with duck meat, green peas, and a browned flour thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ragout of Duck and Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck broth

  1. Cut the meat from the duck carcasses into neat slices.

  2. Stew the bones in 1 quart of water.

  3. Cool the broth. Skim the broth. Season the broth.

Make the gravy and peas

  1. Combine the gravy (or prepared broth) with the duck pieces in a saucepan. Heat the mixture without boiling.

  2. Cook the green peas in boiling water for 20 minutes. Drain the peas. Season the peas with pepper, salt, and butter.

  3. Thicken the gravy with a little browned flour mixed with cold water. Boil the thickened gravy briefly.

Serve

  1. Remove the duck from the saucepan. Arrange the duck in the center of a dish.

  2. Surround the duck with the peas like a green hedge.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + peastop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Duck meat
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the savory meat that the gravy coats.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat, and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Green peas
Add sweetness, color and a soft texture that contrasts with the tender duck.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the seasoned peas.

The step that matters

Heat the duck gravy without boiling. Gently heating the meat in the gravy keeps the duck tender and stops the proteins from tightening and toughening. Boiling would make the meat dry and chewy.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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