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Ducks, Roasted

Roasted ducks stuffed with sage and onion, served with apple sauce and a thick gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ducks, Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare and roast

  1. Stuff the ducks with the sage and onion stuffing and truss them.

  2. Baste the ducks well with hot fat.

  3. Roast the ducks in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour, basting frequently.

  4. Pour off the fat when done.

Make the gravy

  1. For thick gravy, brown the flour in the dripping pan before adding the stock.

  2. Bring the gravy to a boil, season to taste, simmer for 1-2 minutes, and serve 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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which is roasted until cooked through and rendered of fat.
Flour
Browned in the dripping pan and mixed with stock, it thickens the gravy.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, carrying flavour and body.
Sage and onion stuffing
Fills the ducks, adding savoury aroma and flavour as they roast.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the dripping pan. Cooking flour in fat until it turns golden removes its raw starchy taste and builds nutty flavour. Adding stock too early, or leaving it pale, gives a floury, thin gravy with weak thickening.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, onion, flour, pepper, sauce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, onion, flour, pepper, sauce. 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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