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Duck, with Carrots

A roasted duck served with a brown roux sauce, olives, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Duck, with Carrots

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the duck

  1. Singe the duck, draw the duck and truss the duck.

  2. Place the sliced onion in a baking dish and put the duck on top of the onion.

  3. Baste the duck with hot fat.

Roast

  1. Roast the duck in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1 hour, basting frequently.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a pan and stir in flour.

  2. Cook until a brown roux forms.

  3. Add stock to the roux and stir until boiling.

  4. Simmer until needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the trussing string and cut the bird into small joints.

  2. Add the duck joints and olives to the sauce and season well.

  3. Simmer gently for about 30 minutes.

  4. Return the baking dish to the oven until the onion is tender.

  5. Strain the onion through a fine sieve into the sauce.

  6. Drain off excess fat.

  7. Add the sediment from the baking dish to the sauce.

  8. Serve the duck in the center of a hot dish on a croute of fried bread and pour the sauce over the duck.

  9. Add olives.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 bastes and crisps the skin as it roasts.
Flour
Browns with the melted butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which the roux thickens.
Spanish onion
Sits under the duck, softening as it roasts and adding flavor to the sediment used in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour into a roux, adding richness and a nutty browned flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the brown roux. Cooking flour in butter until it browns gives the sauce its color and nutty flavor. Stopping too early leaves a pale, raw-tasting sauce, while going too far makes it bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, olive, butter, bread. 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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