Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Duck , Roast
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
Clean and truss the duck as instructed in Recipe No. 273 for Chicken.
Stuff the duck with the stuffing.
Roast and serve
Roast the duck in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.
Serve with good brown gravy.
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.
-
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,804 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
-
Lemon + port winetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,100 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Duck
- Its fat renders during roasting, crisping the skin and flavoring the meat.
- Stuffing
- Fills the cavity and adds flavor and moisture as the bird cooks.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, port wine):
- Figfits better
- Plumfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Red currantfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, port wine. 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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