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Stuffed Ducks with Sweet Sauce

Stuffed ducks filled with a sweet mixture of bacon, dates, candied lemon peel, almonds, and macaroons, then roasted with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Stuffed Ducks with Sweet Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Split the ducks down the back and remove the flesh, leaving the bones and skin intact.

Make and stuff the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped duck flesh, bacon, dates, candied lemon peel, almonds, and macaroons.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, cinnamon, and white pepper.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the duck skins and sew them up.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the ducks, basting with a mixture of white wine, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

  2. Serve with slices of lemon.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Ducks
Provide the main meat and fat, which flavor the stuffing and the roasting juices.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that moistens the lean duck filling.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture, softening into the stuffing as it cooks.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft filling.
Macaroons
Add sweetness and almond flavor, and help bind the stuffing together.
White wine
Adds acidity to the basting liquid, balancing the sugar and rich duck fat.

The step that matters

Basting the ducks. The basting liquid contains sugar, which browns quickly and can scorch at high oven heat. Watch the colour and baste regularly so the skin caramelizes without burning.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, lemon, almond, cinnamon, white wine, sugar):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, lemon, almond, cinnamon, white wine, sugar. 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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