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Duckling Pot Roast

A pot roast of ducklings cooked with bacon, spices, celery, parsley, wine, and a reduced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Duckling Pot Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Braise

  1. Place a thin strip of bacon and mixed whole spice in a shallow crock.

  2. Add the ducklings and enough hot water or soup-stock to come halfway up the birds.

  3. Add celery and parsley, then place a strip of bacon over each duckling.

  4. Cover the crock and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the ducklings from the crock.

  2. Strain the sauce, reducing it by one-third over heat.

  3. Stir in dark wine.

  4. Thicken the sauce with brown flour, simmering for 15 minutes.

  5. Add lemon juice.

  6. Optionally, boil down some sauce until thick as cream for glazing the ducklings.

Serve

  1. Serve with the ducklings.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducklings
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, moist braise.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the birds as they cook.
Dark wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the reduced sauce.
Brown flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the ducklings.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with brown flour. Flour must be simmered long enough to cook out its raw starch taste and to thicken evenly. Adding it to hot liquid without stirring can cause lumps, so whisk well and keep it simmering.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, wine, flour, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, wine, flour, lemon. 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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