Skip to main content
Main

Wild Duck

Stuffed duck breast filled with veal, mushrooms, and bread, baked and served with wine and espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Wild Duck

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 the stuffing

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the soaked bread, veal, mushrooms, pepper, salt, and garlic.

  3. Remove the breast meat from the duck on both sides.

Stuff and bake

  1. Spread the dressing on the duck breast.

  2. Roll the duck breast up and tie it securely.

  3. Grease a pan with butter.

  4. Place the duck in the pan and season with salt.

  5. Bake until nicely browned.

Braise and serve

  1. Add the Rhine wine and let it simmer for 2 minutes.

  2. Cover with espagnole sauce and cook slowly for 40 minutes.

  3. Serve hot with croutons.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Adds meaty body and richness to the stuffing that holds its filling together.
Bread
Soaked bread gives the stuffing moisture and a softer, tender texture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the stuffing.
Rhine wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Browning relies on surface heat and dryness, so the duck should be patted dry and not crowded. Browning builds flavor through the Maillard reaction. Cooking it fully before the sauce keeps the skin appealing and the meat from turning grey.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, bread, pepper, garlic, butter, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, bread, pepper, garlic, butter, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes