Skip to main content
Main

Roast Duck

Roast duck prepared by feeding ducks barley or cracked wheat, then roasting at 400°F, served with brown gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Barley and flour work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 582 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast 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 ducks

  1. Keep ducks in a small pen for 1-2 days, feeding them barley meal or cracked wheat with plenty of fresh water.

  2. Clean the ducks.

  3. Truss the ducks.

  4. Scald the ducks.

  5. Skin the feet.

  6. Remove the pinions and the long neck.

  7. Stuff the ducks.

  8. Skewer the wings close to the body to plump the breast.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the ducks at 400°F (200°C) for 30-45 minutes, basting often.

  2. Dredge the ducks with flour.

  3. Serve with brown gravy and apple sauce on the side.

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. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Barley + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Barley + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Supply the meat and fat that render during roasting and give the dish its rich flavour.
Flour
Coats the skin so it dries and browns and crisps in the oven.
Apple sauce
Adds tart sweetness that balances the rich, fatty duck.

The step that matters

Basting the ducks while they roast. Duck skin needs its fat to render and the surface to brown evenly. Basting spreads the melted fat and juices over the skin, helping it crisp, while the lean breast can dry out if the roasting runs too long.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, flour, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, flour, sauce. 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.

More roast duck recipes

Olive Sauce for 3with Apples 3 See all 98 →

You might also like

Apple SoupApple Soup33 recipesCream of Barley SoupCream of Barley Soup10 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes