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Ducks a LA Mode

A roasted duck served with a brown gravy made from stock, wine, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

Ducks a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Join the ducks and season with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Fry the ducks in a little butter until light brown.

Stew

  1. Place the ducks in a saucepan with the soup stock and minced onion.

  2. Cover and stew for about 40 minutes after boiling.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Keep the ducks hot over boiling water while straining the gravy.

  2. Add wine to the gravy and thicken with browned flour.

  3. Boil the gravy until thick and pour it over the ducks.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Flour
Coats the ducks for light browning, and browned flour thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fat for frying the ducks, which helps them brown lightly.
Soup stock
Liquid that cooks the ducks and forms the base of the gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy until thick. Gravy thickens only as its liquid reduces and the browned flour swells with heat. Stopping early leaves it thin, while boiling it fully lets the starch thicken it evenly before pouring over the ducks.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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