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Wild Duck Roasted

Roasted wild duck stuffed with bread, liver, heart, onion, raisins, egg, nutmeg, and sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Wild Duck Roasted

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. Soak the duck in salt water for 1 to 2 hours to remove the wild smell.

  2. Soak the stale bread in cold water, then squeeze it dry.

  3. Chop the liver and heart finely.

  4. Fry the onion in butter until soft.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a bowl, mix the soaked bread, chopped liver and heart, fried onion, raisins, egg, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the sherry wine to the mixture and combine well.

  3. Stuff the duck with the mixture.

Roast

  1. Roast in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, basting often.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the main meat, which is soaked in salt water first to reduce its gamey smell.
Stale bread
Soaked and squeezed, it gives the stuffing body and a soft, moist texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they hold their shape while roasting.
Butter
Fat used to soften the onion, adding richness and flavour to the stuffing.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture that contrasts with the rich meat and liver.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma, balancing the richness of the liver and duck.

The step that matters

Basting the duck while it roasts. Basting spreads melted fat and juices over the skin, helping it brown and stay moist. Wild duck is lean, so skipping basting can leave the meat dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, raisin, egg, nutmeg, pepper, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, raisin, egg, nutmeg, pepper, sherry. 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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