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Canvasback Duck

A roasted canvasback duck stuffed with bread, butter, onion, and sage, seasoned with claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Canvasback Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Pick the duck.

  2. Singe the duck by holding it over lighted alcohol.

  3. Clean the duck.

  4. Rinse the duck with claret to remove the fishy taste.

Make the filling

  1. Prepare the filling by mixing grated bread, butter, onion, sage, salt, and pepper without adding water.

  2. Fill the duck with the dressing.

Roast

  1. Baste the duck with butter.

  2. Place the duck in a pan without water.

  3. Bake the duck until cooked through.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Canvasback duck
Main protein, which is the body of the dish and is cooked through by baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown when basting.
Grated bread
Forms the body of the dressing and soaks up fat and juices inside the duck.
Claret
Rinses the duck to remove its fishy taste and adds a light acidity.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Bake the duck until cooked through. Wild duck is lean and can dry out or stay underdone in the center if the heat is too high or the time is misjudged. Cooking it fully is needed for safety, so check doneness carefully rather than relying on a set time.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sage, pepper. 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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