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Stuffing for Wild Duck

A savory stuffing made with cracker crumbs, walnuts, butter, onion, cream, parsley, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Stuffing for Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Crush the cracker crumbs moderately.

  2. Add the walnut meats, cream, butter, and onion; mix well.

  3. Stir in the parsley and season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  4. If the stuffing appears too dry, add more cream or milk.

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. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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

Cracker crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb the cream and butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the crumbs and carries flavour.
English walnut meats
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavour that contrasts the soft crumbs.
Thick cream
Moistens the crumbs and adds richness to bind the stuffing.

The step that matters

Judge the moisture before adding more liquid. Cracker crumbs absorb liquid unevenly and keep soaking up cream as they sit, so a dry-looking stuffing can seem to need more. Adding liquid in small amounts, checking after each addition, prevents a soggy result that loses its texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, walnut, meat, parsley, cream, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, walnut, meat, parsley, cream, 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.

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