Name: To Stew an Old Duck with Cabbage
Ingredients: 1 large fat duck; ½ head of cabbage; 2 tablespoons top-fat; 1 onion, chopped; 1 teaspoon dried sage; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons flour

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 Stew an Old Duck with Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

Cut the cabbage and stew it in top-fat with seasonings.

Cook the duck

Par-roast the duck until browned.
Stew the duck in well-seasoned gravy made with herbs, onions, pepper, and salt.
Thicken the gravy with flour.

Serve

Serve the duck on top of the cabbage with the sauce in the dish.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 renders during roasting and stewing.
Cabbage: Forms the bed of the dish, soft and mild after slow stewing in fat.
Top-fat: Carries the seasoning and gives the cabbage richness as it stews.
Flour: Thickens the gravy so it coats the duck and cabbage.
Onion: Adds savory sweetness to the gravy as it softens and cooks down.

The step that matters

Par-roast the duck until browned. Browning the skin and surface builds rich, roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction and helps render fat. Skipping or rushing it leaves the stew pale and greasy.

Swap the onion

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

Turnipfits better
Parsnipfits better
Kalefits better
Onionthe original

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

Red Cabbage65 recipes

Stewed Cabbage58 recipes

Baked Cabbage51 recipes

Cabbage Dressing19 recipes

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To Stew an Old Duck with Cabbage