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Duck, Stewed Whole

A whole duck stewed with herbs, onions, and a brown stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Duck, Stewed Whole

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Roast and stew

  1. Roast the duck in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  2. Place the duck in a stewpan with the herbs and onions.

  3. Cook slowly for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and cook until browned.

  2. Strain in the brown stock and stir over heat until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes, then strain the sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve the duck on a hot dish, pour some sauce over it, and serve 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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 becomes tender through slow cooking with moisture.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the sauce while it cooks with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury depth and body.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften during the slow cooking.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Cooking the flour in butter until browned removes raw starch taste and builds colour and nutty flavour; if it is undercooked or burnt, the sauce tastes pasty or bitter and thickens unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sage, parsley, thyme, 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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