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Mock Duck

A beef steak stuffed with bread, pork, herbs, and cooked slowly in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mock Duck

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Prepare a dressing by mixing chopped bread, pork, sage, onion, marjoram, salt, and pepper.

  3. Fill the beef steak with the dressing and sew it up.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the steak in a pan and add 1 pint of water.

  2. Cover the pan tightly and cook slowly in the oven for 3 hours.

  3. Remove the lid and brown the steak quickly.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  3. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Forms the outer meat that is stuffed, then slowly braised until tender.
Chopped bread
Absorbs juices and fat from the dressing, keeping the stuffing moist and light.
Chopped pork
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, keeping it moist during long cooking.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the dressing as it softens.
Dried sage
Contributes a warm, earthy aroma that flavors the dressing.

The step that matters

Remove the lid and brown the steak quickly. Long covered cooking in water steams the meat and leaves the surface pale. A brief dry, hot finish triggers browning, which adds color and roasted flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pork, sage, marjoram, 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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