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Ducks Stewed with Red Cabbage

A stew of duck pieces cooked with red cabbage, butter, pepper, salt, vinegar, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ducks Stewed with Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold ducks into convenient pieces.

  2. Warm the duck pieces gradually in a good clear gravy by the side of the fire.

  3. Shred the red cabbage finely, wash it, and drain it on a sieve.

Stew the cabbage

  1. In a covered stew-pan, stew the cabbage with butter, pepper, and salt, shaking it frequently.

  2. If the cabbage gets too dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of gravy.

  3. When the cabbage is tender, add a small glass of vinegar.

Serve

  1. Lay the cabbage on a dish, place the duck pieces on top, and serve.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold ducks
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender as it warms gently in the gravy.
Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the stew and softens during slow, covered cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while the cabbage stews.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, earthy flavour of the cabbage.
Gravy
Carries moisture and flavour, keeping the duck and cabbage from drying out.

The step that matters

Warm the duck pieces gradually in the gravy. Heating meat slowly at low temperature keeps the fibres from tightening and drying out, so the duck stays tender. Rushing the heat toughens the meat.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagethe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

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