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To Stew Wild Ducks

A stew of wild ducks seasoned with salt, pepper, cloves, shallots, butter, vinegar, water, lemon peel, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Wild Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Rub the insides of the ducks with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and powdered cloves.

  2. Place 1–2 shallots and 2 tablespoons of butter inside each duck.

Stew

  1. In a pan that fits the ducks, add 1 tablespoon of butter under and over them, along with vinegar and water.

  2. Season the ducks with additional pepper, salt, lemon peel, and sweet herbs.

  3. Cover the pan tightly and let the ducks stew until fully cooked.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve.

  2. Pour the strained liquid over the ducks.

  3. Serve hot with lemon slices and fried bread pieces.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews slowly in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the ducks as they cook.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic flavour that infuses the meat and cooking liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich duck flavour and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and stew until fully cooked. A tight lid traps steam so the liquid stays at a gentle simmer and the meat cooks evenly and stays moist. Too little liquid or too much heat can dry out the ducks or toughen the meat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, shallot, butter, vinegar, lemon, bread):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, shallot, butter, vinegar, lemon, bread. 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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