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Roast Wild Duck

A roasted wild duck stuffed with carrots and celery, seasoned with salt and cayenne, served with baked apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Roast Wild Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the duck carefully and fill it with sliced carrots and celery.

  2. While damp, rub the duck with coarse sea salt.

Roast

  1. Arrange the duck in a roasting pan and place small slices of bacon on top.

  2. Sprinkle with a dash of cayenne pepper.

  3. Roast in a closed pan in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with baked apples.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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 cooks through in the roasting pan.
Small slices of bacon
Lay over the duck to baste it with fat and add savory flavor as it roasts.
Sliced carrots
Sit inside the duck, adding aromatic sweetness and moisture as they cook.
Sliced celery
Sit inside the duck, adding aromatic flavor as they cook.

The step that matters

Roast in a closed pan at high heat for the stated time. Wild duck is lean and dries out quickly at high heat. Keeping the pan closed traps steam and moisture, which helps the meat stay tender while the skin browns.

“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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