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Braised Duckling with Turnips

A braised duckling cooked with turnips, butter, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Braised Duckling with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Prepare the duck.

  2. Place it in a stewpan with the butter.

  3. Cook until the duck is browned all over.

  4. Remove the duck to a dish.

Brown the turnips

  1. Add the turnip pieces to the butter.

  2. Cook until they begin to brown.

  3. Sprinkle the turnips with the sugar. Let them cook for two minutes.

  4. Remove the turnips to a basin.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in the flour. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Gradually add the stock to the stewpan.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and the bouquet garni.

Braise and serve

  1. Return the duck to the stewpan.

  2. Add the turnips when the duck is half done.

  3. Turn the duck over two or three times, being careful not to break the turnips.

  4. Remove the bouquet garni.

  5. Skim off the fat.

  6. 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. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Browned first in butter, then braised until tender in the stock.
Butter
Browns the duck and turnips and carries flavor into the cooking fat.
Turnips
Absorb the braising liquid and brown lightly, adding sweetness and body.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Stock
Forms the braising liquid that cooks the duck and turnips gently.

The step that matters

Browning the turnips with the sugar. Sugar caramelizes quickly at the pan's heat, so the turnips can scorch before they color evenly. Cooking only briefly and keeping the pieces moving prevents bitterness while building a golden, sweeter surface.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, 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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