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Roast Ducks

Roast Ducks is a whole duck prepared by cleaning, stuffing, dredging, roasting, and making a gravy from the drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Clean the ducks by washing the inside in three waters, the second with baking soda.

  2. Plunge the ducks into ice-cold water for 15 minutes.

  3. Wipe the ducks inside and out.

  4. Stuff the ducks with dry bread crumbs seasoned with salt, pepper, onion juice, and parsley, without moistening the stuffing.

  5. Dredge the ducks in salted and peppered flour.

  6. Place the ducks on a roasting rack.

Roast and baste

  1. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the ducks.

  2. Roast the ducks covered for 12 to 15 minutes per pound.

  3. Baste the ducks four times with the gravy from the dripping pan.

  4. Uncover the ducks.

  5. Wash the ducks with butter.

  6. Dredge the ducks with flour.

  7. Brown the ducks.

Make the gravy

  1. Drain the pan liquor.

  2. Set the pan liquor in ice water to separate the grease.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Add finely minced giblets.

  5. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  6. Boil the gravy for 2 minutes.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
The main protein; cleaning, stuffing and roasting shape the final dish.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb juices and flavor the stuffing while staying dry for a crisp, well-cooked interior.
Flour
Dredging coats the skin, helping it brown and crisp during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat to the skin, promoting richer browning and a golden color.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor and color.
Giblets
Finely minced, they add savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Separating the grease from the pan liquor. Chilling the pan liquor in ice water lets fat solidify on top so it can be removed, keeping the gravy from tasting greasy and letting it thicken cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, parsley, flour, 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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