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Boiled Duck

A whole duck is seasoned, stuffed, coated in butter‑flour paste, boiled, and served with a stock‑based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Dress the duck and rub the inside with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Truss and tie the duck in shape, drawing the legs into the body.

  3. Stuff the duck with sage leaves, chopped onion, and jellied stock or gravy.

  4. Rub the outside with salt and pepper.

  5. Make a paste with ½ pound butter and 1 pound flour.

  6. Enclose the duck in the paste.

  7. Tie a cloth around the duck.

Boil the duck

  1. Boil for 2 hours or until tender, keeping it covered with boiling water.

Make the giblet gravy

  1. Melt an egg‑sized lump of butter in a saucepan with minced onion, and cook until slightly brown.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon flour, stir well, and cook until brown.

  3. Add ½ pint stock or water and let cook for a few minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Mix the strained stock with the chopped giblets.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 the main meat, which cooks slowly in boiling water until tender.
Butter
Enriches the flavour and helps brown the onion and flour base of the gravy.
Flour
Forms the sealed pastry casing around the duck and thickens the gravy base.
Jellied stock or gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour inside the duck as it cooks.
Giblets
Add savoury meaty flavour and body to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Keeping the duck covered with boiling water. If the water level drops and the duck is exposed, the uncovered parts cool and cook unevenly, and the pastry may dry or tear, so the duck may not become uniformly tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sage, butter, flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, butter, flour, egg. 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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