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Pot Roast Wild Duck

A pot roast made with wild duck, butter, onion, carrot, bread, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,377 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pot Roast Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe, draw, clean, and season the duck like a turkey.

Brown and braise

  1. Heat butter or poultry fat in a hot pan.

  2. Add sliced onion, carrot, and a slice of brown bread.

  3. Brown the duck on both sides.

  4. Add hot soup stock or boiling water, cover, and cook until tender.

Finish the gravy

  1. Season with additional pepper, salt, and ginger if necessary.

  2. Stir in sweet pickle vinegar and Currant Jelly to the gravy.

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. Carrot + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,377 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow moist cooking.
Butter or poultry fat
Conducts heat for browning the duck and adds richness to the pan.
Brown bread
Thickens and gives body to the gravy as it breaks down in the cooking liquid.
Soup stock or boiling water
Provides moisture so the duck braises gently and forms a gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss to the gravy.
Sweet pickle vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the duck on both sides. Searing the surface in hot fat builds browned, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the gravy flat and pale.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, bread, pepper, ginger, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, bread, pepper, ginger, vinegar. 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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