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Mock Duck

A rolled steak stuffed with bread crumbs, onions, butter, and salt pork or bacon, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mock Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and chopped onions.

  3. Place the dressing in the center of the steak, roll it up, and sew it together.

Bake

  1. Place the rolled steak in a dripping pan and add pieces of butter on top.

  2. Lay thin slices of salt pork or bacon on top of the meat.

  3. Bake until brown, 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the outer wrap and cooks into tender meat that surrounds the dressing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the dressing a soft, bready body.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma to the dressing as they cook.
Salt pork or bacon
Adds fat that bastes the meat and encourages browning and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor on the surface.

The step that matters

Basting the steak while it bakes. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and carries fat and browned juices over the meat, which promotes even browning and prevents the lean steak from drying out during the long bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, pork. 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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