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Wild Duck

Roasted wild duck served with gravy and currant or cranberry jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wild Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Place the duck in a baking pan with the onion.

Roast

  1. Baste the duck with water initially, then with melted butter.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and flour, then brown the duck.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes.

Gravy and serving

  1. Make gravy from the giblets.

  2. Serve with currant or cranberry jelly.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

Butter and flour 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

Wild duck
The main protein; its fat renders during roasting, keeping the meat moist and crisping the skin.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the skin brown and develop a golden color.
Flour
Coats the skin so it browns more evenly and deeply in the oven.
Onion
Sits under the duck, adding aromatic flavor to the pan juices used for the gravy.
Currant or cranberry jelly
Its tartness and sweetness cut through the rich, fatty flavor of the duck.

The step that matters

Browning the duck before baking. Browning the surface creates color and savory flavor through Maillard reactions. If the duck goes into the oven pale, the skin stays flabby and the flavor is flat.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour. 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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