Skip to main content
Main

Fricassee of Ducks

A stew of duck pieces simmered in a sauce of gravy, claret, onion, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Dust the duck pieces with flour and fry them in a pan until light brown.

  2. Drain the duck pieces and place them in a saucepan.

Stew

  1. Add gravy, claret, chopped parsley, minced onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cover the saucepan and stew for 30 minutes or until the ducks are tender.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the duck pieces and strain the gravy.

  2. Set the gravy in cold water to separate the fat, then remove the fat.

  3. Thicken the gravy with browned flour mixed with water, then bring to a boil.

  4. Place the duck pieces on a flat dish and pour the gravy over them.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing in liquid.
Flour
Dusted on the duck and browned flour thickens the gravy, adding body and color.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor that balances the richness of the duck and gravy.
Gravy or soup stock
Forms the cooking liquid that carries flavor and becomes the serving sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Set the gravy in cold water to separate the fat. Fat rises and solidifies as the gravy cools, so chilling lets it be lifted off. Skipping this leaves the sauce greasy and heavy on the palate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, parsley, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes