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A Souties of Wild Duck

Thin slices of wild duck served with a reduced stock and orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and port wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

A Souties of Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Slice the breasts of the wild ducks thinly.

  2. Butter a sauté pan and sprinkle with shallot.

  3. Add port wine and lay the duck slices on top.

Make the stock

  1. In a stewpan, combine the legs and other parts of the ducks with stock, mace, shallots, and port wine.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours until reduced by half.

  3. Strain the liquid into another stewpan and skim off the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the sauté pan for a few minutes and turn the souties.

  2. Combine the souties with the strained liquid and squeeze in the Seville orange juice.

  3. Dish it up and garnish with paste.

  4. Add a little cayenne pepper before serving.

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. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Port wine + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together695 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the meat for the souties, with the breasts sliced thin and the legs and other parts simmered for flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce and the sautéed duck slices.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that is reduced into the sauce.
Shallot
Adds aromatic onion flavor to the pan and the simmering liquid.
Seville orange juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich duck and wine sauce.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours until reduced by half. A slow simmer lets the stock and wine reduce gradually and concentrate flavor from the duck bones and legs without toughening the meat or breaking the liquid. Boiling too hard can make the liquid cloudy and overcook the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, port wine, orange, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, port wine, orange, 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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