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To Cook Wild Ducks

A dish of wild ducks cooked in water, stuffed with mashed potatoes and eggs, seasoned, baked, and served with gravy and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Cook Wild Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the ducks in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Add 2 large onions for each duck.

  3. When half cooked, remove ducks from the water.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff each duck with mashed potatoes and 2 beaten eggs, seasoned with onions, sage, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

  2. Bake until thoroughly done, basting frequently with gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy mixed with finely chopped parsley fried in butter.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mashed potato stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Mashed potatoes
Fill the cavity and add a soft, absorbent body that takes up flavour and juices.
Butter
Fries the parsley for the gravy, adding richness and a toasty aroma.

The step that matters

Removing the ducks when half cooked. Pulling the ducks out at the midpoint lets them finish in the oven, so the flesh is not overcooked and dry while the stuffing reaches the center. Stopping at the right moment matters.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, sage, pepper, parsley, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, sage, pepper, parsley, 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.

More wild duck recipes

Roasted 111Stew 21Sauce 12Roast 11Roast 9Hash 6 See all 13 →

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