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Duck, with Green Peas

A roasted duck simmered in gravy with sage and green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Duck, with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roast the duck.

Stew

  1. Place the duck in a stewpan with the gravy and sage leaves.

  2. Cover and let it cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the boiled green peas to the pan and thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the duck with the gravy and peas poured over it.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sage + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  5. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

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

Duck
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews in the gravy.
Good gravy
Keeps the duck moist and carries the flavour through the stew.
Green peas
Add sweet, fresh flavour and bright colour to the dish.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness to its texture when thickened.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the duck and peas.
Sage leaves
Add an aromatic, herbal flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with butter and flour. Flour must be blended smoothly with the butter and cooked through in the hot gravy. Stirring it in well prevents lumps, and cooking it fully removes the raw, pasty taste of flour while the starch swells to thicken the sauce.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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