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Braised Duck

A braised duck served with a turnip garnish and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Braised Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the ducks

  1. Prepare the ducks as for roasting.

  2. Place the ducks in a stewpan with bacon, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley, and pepper.

  3. Cover the stewpan with broth.

  4. Add white wine to the stewpan.

  5. Simmer over gentle heat, basting frequently until done.

  6. Remove the ducks from the stewpan.

  7. Keep the ducks hot.

Prepare the gravy and turnip

  1. Cut the turnip into pieces.

  2. Fry the turnip pieces in butter until browned.

  3. Drain the fried turnip.

  4. Cook the turnip until tender in the duck braising liquid.

  5. Strain the braising liquid.

  6. Thicken the strained gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the ducks.

  2. Pour the gravy over the ducks.

  3. Garnish the ducks with the turnip pieces.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 becomes tender through slow, moist braising.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the braising liquid and the duck.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich braising liquid.
Turnip
Browns in butter for flavour, then turns tender in the braising liquid.
Broth
Forms the moist cooking liquid that becomes the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer over gentle heat, basting frequently until done. Gentle simmering keeps the braising liquid below a hard boil, so the connective tissue in the duck softens slowly without the meat toughening or drying. Frequent basting keeps the exposed surfaces moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper, white wine, butter. 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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