Name: Roast Duck
Ingredients: 1 duck; Claret or weak vinegar water for rinsing; Stuffing (with onion and sage); 1 onion (for topping); Giblet gravy (for serving); Apple sauce (for serving); Green peas (for serving)

Why it works: Sage and apple work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Pick the duck dry and singe the feathers near the head.
Rinse the duck with claret or weak vinegar water.
Fill the duck with stuffing made of onion and sage.
Slice the onion and place it on top of the duck.
Scrape off the onion after baking to reduce the strong odor.
Serve the duck with giblet gravy, apple sauce, and green peas.

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.

Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,460 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Apple + peastop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together192 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, onion, sage, apple, sauce):

Chestnutfits better
Beansfits better
Sesamefits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, sage, apple, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.