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Duck, Braised, with Turnips

A braised duck served with diced turnips and a reduced stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Duck, Braised, with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Truss the duck.

  2. Lard the duck.

  3. Braise the duck as directed in the previous recipe.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the stock and reduce it by boiling until about half remains.

  2. Add the sherry and season to taste.

Cook the turnips

  1. Cut the turnips into dice.

  2. Cook the turnips until tender.

Glaze and serve

  1. Brush the duck with warm glaze.

  2. Crisp the lardons in the oven.

  3. Place the duck on a hot dish.

  4. Arrange the turnips around the duck.

  5. Pour the sauce over the duck and turnips.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sherry + turniptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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 is braised until tender.
Larding bacon
Adds fat that bastes the lean duck meat and adds savory flavor.
Good stock
Forms the base of the sauce, adding savory depth as it reduces.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce.
Young turnips
Add mild sweetness and a tender texture alongside the duck.

The step that matters

Reduce the stock until about half remains. Boiling concentrates the stock's flavor and thickens it into a sauce. Reducing too little leaves it thin and watery, while reducing too far makes it overly salty and intense.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, 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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