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Wild Ducks and Teal

Roasted wild ducks and teal served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Wild Ducks and Teal

Ingredients

Directions

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

Roast the teal

  1. Roast the teal for about 20 minutes in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C), basting frequently.

  2. In the last minute, pour hot butter, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and port wine over the teal.

Prepare and roast the wild ducks

  1. For wild ducks, clean and wash them by pouring warm water through their bodies.

  2. Roast the ducks for 30 minutes in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) without stuffing.

  3. Slice the breasts of the ducks and squeeze lemon juice over them.

Serve

  1. 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Teal
The main game birds, whose lean meat is kept moist by frequent basting.
Wild ducks
The main game birds, roasted until cooked through with richly flavoured meat.
Hot butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the skin brown and the meat stay juicy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, gamey meat.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth, giving the pan liquid a fuller, fruity flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweet-tart fruitiness that balances the rich flavour of the game.

The step that matters

Basting the teal frequently. Lean game birds dry out quickly in a hot oven. Spooning the pan fats and juices back over the surface keeps the meat moist and helps the skin brown evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, pepper, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, pepper, port wine. 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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