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Modern Cookery

A duck stew cooked with carrots, green onions, parsley, and shallots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

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 roast

  1. Truss the duck firmly.

  2. Roast the duck halfway at 400°F (200°C).

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, add the duck as it comes off the spit.

  2. Brown the duck in some thickening.

  3. Cover the duck partially with boiling gravy.

  4. Turn the duck when it is partially cooked.

  5. Stew the duck for 1 to 1.25 hours until well cooked.

Finish

  1. In the last 30 minutes, add the carrots, green onions, parsley, and shallots to the stew.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main meat, and its fat enriches the broth as it stews.
Boiling gravy
Forms the liquid that gently cooks the duck and becomes the sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the stew as they soften.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aroma that mellows during stewing.
Green onions
Contribute fresh aroma that softens into the stew.
Butter
Provides fat for frying, helping the duck brown richly.

The step that matters

Turn the duck when it is partially cooked. The gravy only covers part of the bird, so turning exposes the rest to the liquid and heat. This helps the duck cook evenly and stay moist rather than drying on top.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, shallot, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, shallot, butter. 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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