Skip to main content
Main

Ducks, a LA Macedoine

A duck braised with carrots, onions, cloves, parsley, and white broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ducks, a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the ducks

  1. Truss the ducks for boiling.

  2. Place them in an oval saucepan with the carrot, onion, cloves, and parsley.

  3. Moisten with the white broth and cover with a piece of well-buttered paper.

  4. Put the lid on the saucepan and bring to a boil.

  5. Add live embers on the lid and move the ducks to the side of the stove to braise gently for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, drain the ducks on a napkin, remove the string, and serve with a variety of glazed vegetables.

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

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle braising in liquid.
White broth
Moistens the ducks and gently cooks them, keeping the meat from drying out.
Butter
Enriches the surface and, through the buttered paper, helps keep the ducks moist while braising.

The step that matters

Bringing to a boil, then braising gently. Once the liquid boils, the heat must be lowered to a gentle braise. A hard boil would toughen the meat and make it dry and stringy, so the ducks are moved to the side of the stove.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, parsley, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, parsley, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes