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Braised Ducks

Braised ducks with bacon, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, and turnip garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Braised Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the ducks

  1. Truss the ducks as for roasting and place them in a stew pan.

  2. Add bacon, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley, and pepper.

  3. Cover with broth and add white wine.

  4. Place the pan over low heat and simmer the ducks, basting frequently until done.

  5. Remove the ducks and keep them warm.

Finish the gravy and garnish

  1. Cut the turnip into pieces and fry in butter until browned.

  2. Drain the turnip and cook until tender in the duck braising liquid.

  3. Strain and thicken the gravy, then pour it over the ducks and garnish with turnip pieces.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Young fat ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and moist during slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that flavours the braising liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the braising liquid and gravy.
Turnip
Browns in butter for flavour, then turns tender in the braising liquid.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering the ducks over low heat. Gentle heat keeps the meat moist and tender while collagen slowly breaks down. Frequent basting keeps the exposed surfaces from drying out. Boiling would toughen the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, 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.

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