Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Wild Duck

A savory dish of chopped cooked duck simmered with stock, butter, flour, and seasonings, served hot over toast or croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Hashed Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

  1. Melt and brown the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until browned.

  3. Pour in the stock and add the duck; cook until thoroughly heated.

  4. Transfer to a farina boiler.

Finish and serve

  1. Five minutes before serving, add the parsley, catsup, and wine.

  2. Let it stand only until heated, then serve on toast or with croutons.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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, cooked and finely chopped so it blends into the sauce.
Flour
Browned with the butter to thicken the stock into a smooth, lightly nutty sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and is browned first to build a rich base.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce, added late so its flavor stays fresh.
Mushroom catsup
Adds savory, umami depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Let it stand only until heated, then serve. Holding the hash too long over heat can thicken it too far, dull the flavors, and toughen the duck. Serve as soon as it is hot through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, flour, port wine, pepper):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, flour, port wine, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes