Name: Canvas-back Ducks
Ingredients: 2 canvas-back ducks; ¼ cup lard; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; giblets from the ducks; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; water as needed; 1 tablespoon lemon juice

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 ↓

Canvas-back Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

Wipe the ducks dry and stuff them as you would any other fowl.
Rub the ducks with lard, pepper, and salt.
Roast the ducks in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour.

Make the gravy and serve

In a saucepan, stir the giblets rolled in butter and flour, adding just enough water to create a gravy.
Before serving, squeeze a little lemon juice over the ducks.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Canvas-back ducks: Provide the main meat, which is cooked by dry oven heat until done.
Lard: Adds fat that helps the skin brown and keeps the meat from drying out.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form a thickening base for the gravy.
Flour: Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Giblets: Contribute savory, meaty flavor to the gravy.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the duck.

“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.