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To Roast Wild Ducks

A roasted wild duck stuffed with bread and onion, topped with salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roast Wild Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the ducks.

  2. Fill the ducks with a dressing made of bread and chopped onion.

Cook

  1. Boil the ducks until about half cooked.

  2. Lay the ducks on their backs and spread slices of salt pork over their breasts.

  3. Roast the ducks until fully cooked.

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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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 is cooked through by boiling and then roasting.
Bread
Forms the dressing that absorbs juices and keeps the inside of the bird moist.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory flavor to the bread dressing inside the duck.
Salt pork
Adds fat that bastes the breasts as they roast, aiding browning and moisture.

The step that matters

Boil until only half cooked. Boiling shortens the time needed in the oven. Boiling too long leaves the meat dry and tough, and the roasting stage then cannot restore moisture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pork):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork. 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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