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Ducks, a LA Macedoine

A braised duck served with glazed vegetables and Allemande sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ducks, a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the ducks

  1. Truss the ducks for boiling.

  2. Place them in an oval stewpan with the carrot, onion, cloves, and parsley.

  3. Moisten with the white broth and cover with well-buttered paper.

  4. Put the lid on and bring to a boil.

  5. Add live embers on the lid and braise gently for about an hour.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, drain the ducks on a napkin and remove the string.

  2. Serve with a variety of glazed vegetables and sauce with Allemande.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Asparagus + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow moist braising.
White broth
Moistens the ducks during braising and keeps them from drying out.
Carrot
Adds aromatic sweetness and flavour to the braising liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic depth to the braising liquid as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Add live embers on the lid and braise gently for about an hour.. Gentle, steady heat under a covered pot keeps the liquid just simmering. Boiling hard would toughen the meat and make it stringy, so the heat must stay low and even.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, parsley, sauce, turnip, asparagus, beans):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, parsley, sauce, turnip, asparagus, beans. 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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