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Roast Ducks

Roast ducks seasoned with salt, pepper, onion juice, parsley, and bread crumbs, baked and served with gravy, currant jelly or apple sauce, green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Roast Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Draw the ducks, clean them, and wash the inside in three waters.

  2. Wash the inside in the second water with baking soda, then plunge the ducks into ice-cold water for 15 minutes.

  3. Wipe the ducks inside and out.

  4. Stuff the ducks with dry bread crumbs seasoned with salt, pepper, onion juice, and parsley.

  5. Dredge the ducks with salted and peppered flour.

Roast

  1. Place the ducks on a roasting rack.

  2. Pour boiling water over the ducks.

  3. Roast the ducks covered for 12-15 minutes per pound.

  4. Baste the ducks four times with the gravy from the pan.

  5. Uncover the ducks.

  6. Wash the ducks with butter.

  7. Dredge the ducks with flour.

  8. Brown the ducks.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Drain the pan to make the gravy.

  2. Set the pan in ice water to remove grease.

  3. Strain the pan.

  4. Add finely minced giblets to the pan.

  5. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  6. Boil the gravy for 2 minutes.

  7. Serve the ducks with currant jelly or apple sauce and green peas.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Bread + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 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

Ducks
The main protein; roasting renders fat and cooks the meat through.
Baking soda
Washed into the inside to help the skin and meat stay tender during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and taste savory.
Flour
Dredged on the ducks to help the skin brown and form a crisp coating.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deep color and aroma.
Dry bread crumbs
Soak up juices inside the bird, adding moisture and a savory filling.

The step that matters

Plunge the ducks into ice-cold water for 15 minutes. Chilling after washing firms the skin and helps it crisp later during roasting, while the cold water also keeps the bird from warming up and spoiling before it is cooked.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, onion, parsley, flour, butter, peas. 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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