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Duck, Salmi

A duck stuffed with egg yolks, cooked with vegetables and Espagnole sauce, wine, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Duck, Salmi

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the duck

  1. Stuff the duck with yolks of eggs and truss it neatly.

  2. Melt butter in a large stewpan.

  3. Add sliced vegetables to the pan.

  4. Place the duck on top of the vegetables.

Braise

  1. Cover and fry gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables.

  3. Let it boil away, adding more stock as needed.

  4. Cover the duck with buttered paper. Put on the lid.

  5. Cook gently for about 2 hours until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Heat the Espagnole sauce.

  2. Add wine to the sauce.

  3. Add jelly to the sauce.

  4. Season to taste.

  5. Remove trussing strings.

  6. Place the duck in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes to crisp the bacon.

  7. Serve with a small quantity of sauce poured over the duck and the remainder in a sauceboat.

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 + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sauce + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,936 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + winetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Main protein; slow gentle cooking makes the meat tender.
Yolks of eggs
Bind the stuffing and enrich it with fat and richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the vegetables brown gently.
Sliced vegetables
Form a bed that flavours the stock and keeps the duck off the pan base.
Espagnole sauce
Brown base that gives the finished sauce body and savoury depth.
Jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss to the sauce, balancing its savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Cook gently for about 2 hours until tender. Low, covered, gentle heat breaks down the connective tissue in the duck slowly. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can dry it out.

“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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