Skip to main content
Main

Mock Duck

Mock Duck is a stuffed steak rolled with breadcrumbs, onion, butter, sage, and spices, baked and served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Mock Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, salt, pepper, chopped onion, butter, and sage.

Roll and bake

  1. Place the filling on the steak and roll it up tightly.

  2. Secure the roll with skewers or toothpicks.

  3. Place the rolled steak in a casserole dish.

  4. Add stock or water to the dish.

  5. Bake for about 45 minutes.

  6. Serve with currant jelly.

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. Pepper + sagetop 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. Onion + buttertop 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

Round or flank steak
Forms the outer wrap and provides the meaty body of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and onion juices, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the filling moist during baking.
Chopped onion
Adds moisture and savory sweetness that deepens the filling's flavor.
Stock or water
Creates moist steam in the dish, helping the steak cook gently and stay tender.

The step that matters

Rolling the steak tightly. A tight roll keeps the filling inside and helps the meat cook evenly. Loose rolls can open or let the filling fall out during baking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes