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Duck Pie

A pie made by stuffing a duck with fowl and pickled calf's tongue, seasoned with pepper, salt, allspice, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Duck Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the birds

  1. Bone the duck and fowl, then wash them.

  2. Season the duck and fowl with pepper, coarse sea salt, allspice, and mace.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the fowl inside the duck, then add the pickled calf's tongue on top.

  2. Press the duck and fowl together, ensuring the skins of the legs are drawn inward for a smooth appearance.

  3. If desired, fill the space between the crust with forcemeat.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C) in a dish or raised pie-crust until done.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides rich meat and fat that keeps the filling moist and flavourful.
Fowl
Adds more meat and body to the filling, filling the duck's cavity.
Pickled calf's tongue
Adds tender, savoury meat with a distinct cured flavour.

The step that matters

Baking in a slow oven until done. The birds are dense and layered, so low, gentle heat lets the heat reach the centre and slowly break down connective tissue, making the meat tender. Higher heat would brown and dry the outside before the middle is cooked.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice. 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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