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Wild Duck and Red Currant Jelly Sauce

A roasted wild duck served with a sauce of red currant jelly, stock, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Wild Duck and Red Currant Jelly Sauce

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.

Roast the ducks

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

  2. Place the ducks in a baking dish and sprinkle the breasts with flour and seasoning.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and bake for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the paper a few minutes before done to brown the breasts.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine stock-broth, bay leaf, allspice, thyme, red currant jelly, roux, and seasoning.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes, then strain through a fine sieve.

  3. Add soy sauce and port wine to the strained sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve the ducks on a hot dish, pouring some sauce over them.

  2. Serve the remaining sauce in a separate dish and lemon pieces on a plate.

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. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + red curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  5. Red currant + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild ducks
Provide the main meat, whose breasts brown during the final part of roasting.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a tart fruit flavour that balances the rich duck.
Roux
Thickens the stock so the sauce coats the duck rather than running off.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the finished sauce.
Flour
Dusted on the breasts, it helps them brown and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Remove the paper a few minutes before done. Uncovering the breasts near the end lets their surface brown through dry heat. Leaving the paper on too long keeps them pale and steamed.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, allspice, thyme, sauce, port wine, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, allspice, thyme, sauce, port wine, 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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