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Stewed Duck

A stew of duck pieces cooked in a gravy of giblets, veal, and herbs, finished with a cream and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Stewed Duck

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Par-boil the ducks for 10 minutes.

  2. Place the par-boiled ducks in very cold water for 30 minutes.

  3. Cut the ducks into joints, season with salt, pepper, and dust with flour.

  4. Heat butter in a frying pan and fry the duck joints until light brown.

Stew

  1. Transfer the fried ducks to a saucepan and cover with gravy made from giblets, neck, and bits of lean veal.

  2. Add minced shallot, sweet herbs, salt and pepper, cover, and stew for 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. Remove the ducks, strain the gravy, and skim off excess fat.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix ½ cup cream or rich milk with a beaten egg, then gradually add to the gravy to avoid curdling.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, add vinegar and lemon juice, then bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the sauce over the ducks before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Carrot + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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 stewing.
Flour
Dusting and browned flour thicken the gravy and help the duck brown.
Egg
Beaten egg with cream enriches and thickens the finished sauce.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smoother texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its fattiness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg to the gravy. Egg proteins can curdle when hot, so the mixture should be stirred into the gravy gradually, letting it temper before the sauce is brought to a boil.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, veal, shallot, cream, 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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