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To Roast Ducks

A method for roasting whole ducks with butter, onions, sage, salt, pepper, and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the heads and necks from the ducks, leaving the feet on.

  2. Hold the ducks in boiling water for a few minutes to loosen the skin, then peel it off.

  3. Wash the inside of the ducks with water and wipe the outsides with a dry cloth.

  4. Season the inside with parboiled onions, minced sage, salt, pepper, and a slice of butter if desired.

  5. Cut off the pinions at the first joint and truss the feet behind the backs.

Roast and serve

  1. Spit the ducks firmly and roast them at a brisk fire, basting constantly.

  2. When the breasts are well plumped and the steam draws towards the fire, dish the ducks.

  3. Serve quickly with brown gravy poured around them.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Their fat renders during roasting, keeping the meat moist and the skin crisp.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the flavour and helps keep the meat moist.
Minced sage
Contributes a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour that perfumes the meat.

The step that matters

Dishing the ducks at the right moment. Dish the ducks when the breasts look well plumped and steam drifts toward the fire, as the record describes. Leaving them too long dries the meat, while removing them too early leaves it underdone and the fat unrendered.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sage, pepper. 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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