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Wild Ducks, Widgeons, and Teal

Roasted wild duck, widgeon, and teal served with a mustard‑anchovy‑mushroom ketchup and port wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Wild Ducks, Widgeons, and Teal

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 oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dress the wild duck, widgeon, and teal without stuffing.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the birds in the oven and roast quickly, basting with butter.

  2. Roast the wild duck for 25-30 minutes, the widgeon for 20-25 minutes, and the teal for 15-20 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, mix the mustard, essence of anchovy, cayenne, mushroom ketchup, and port wine.

  4. Pour the sauce into the cavity of the bird 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.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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 roasted quickly to stay tender and juicy.
Widgeon
Provides the main meat, cooked for a shorter time than the wild duck.
Teal
Provides the main meat, the smallest bird and so the shortest roasting time.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and adds richness to the skin.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, umami depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Roasting times for each bird. Wild duck, widgeon, and teal differ in size and need different times. Roasting too long dries the lean meat, while too short leaves it underdone, so each bird should be timed separately.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, port wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, port wine. 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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