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Stewed Duck and Peas

A stew of duck, peas, onions, and herbs simmered in butter and broth.

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

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter and add the bacon, then cook over medium heat until lightly browned.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the broth or water and mix gently until boiling.

  3. Skim the surface.

  4. Add the onions, parsley, bay leaf, and cloves, and simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. Add the peas and continue to simmer for about 30 minutes until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the duck and place it on a serving dish, then discard the trussing string.

  2. Remove the parsley and bay leaf from the stew.

  3. Season the peas with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  4. Skim off excess fat.

  5. Reduce the sauce if it's not thick enough.

  6. Pour the sauce over the duck.

  7. 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
Forms the main body of the dish, releasing fat and juices that flavour the stew.
Butter
Carries the bacon's flavour and enriches the sauce with fat.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce as it cooks.
Bacon
Browns in the fat to add savoury, smoky depth to the stew.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture as they simmer in the sauce.
Button onions
Soften during simmering and add mild sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce if it's not thick enough. Flour thickens the broth only as it simmers and reduces. Cooking too briefly leaves a thin sauce, while over-reducing can make it overly salty and dense, so check consistency gradually.

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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