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Stewed Duck and Peas

A duck stew cooked with peas, onions, bacon, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Duck and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Melt butter and add bacon.

  2. Cook over medium heat until lightly browned.

  3. Stir in flour and add broth or water.

  4. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

Simmer the stew

  1. Add button onions, parsley, bay leaf, and cloves.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Add young peas and simmer for about 30 minutes until done.

  4. Remove parsley and bay leaf from stew.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove duck, place on serving dish, discard trussing string.

  2. Season peas with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  3. Skim off excess fat and reduce sauce if not thick enough.

  4. Pour sauce over duck and serve.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main meat and rendered fat that gives the stew its rich flavor.
Butter
Carries the bacon's flavor and helps it brown in the pan.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that builds the base flavor of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a body-rich sauce that clings to the duck.
Button onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and aroma to the sauce.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Skim fat and reduce the sauce. Fat rises to the surface and can make the sauce greasy, so skimming removes it. Simmering evaporates water and concentrates the flour-thickened liquid, so the sauce coats the duck instead of running thin.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, parsley, clove, pepper, sugar. 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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