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Duck Pie

A savory pie filled with duck, gravy, and seasonings, topped with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Duck Pie

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 and fill

  1. Prepare a raised crust and remove the top crust and inner tin.

  2. Layer in the joints of duck, seasonings, and forcemeat if using.

  3. Pour in the brown gravy and lay the top crust back on.

Bake and serve

  1. Return to the oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes to set.

  2. Carefully slip onto a dish while hot.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown gravy
Provides moisture and savory flavor that fills the pie and keeps the meat from drying.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the gravy so it holds together rather than running out of the crust.
Bread crumbs
Adds body to the forcemeat, helping it bind and hold its shape.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the gravy, with a richer, slightly fruity aroma.

The step that matters

Carefully slip onto a dish while hot. The filling is held together mainly by thickened gravy and the set crust. Turning the pie out while it is hot keeps the structure intact, since the gravy firms as it cools and the crust can break if the pie is handled roughly.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, mustard, butter, flour, onion, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, mustard, butter, flour, onion, bread. 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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