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Salmis of Wild Duck

A stew of roasted wild duck pieces simmered in a red wine and butter sauce with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Salmis of Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Roast and joint the duck

  1. Roast the wild duck over a brisk fire for about 25 minutes until it retains its juices.

  2. Place the duck breast-side down in a dish to cool.

  3. Cut the duck into small joints: two fillets, two legs, and the breast and back into two pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the trimmings with ½ pint of red wine, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add butter, onion, carrot, and celery to the stewpan and sauté until softened.

  3. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute, then add chicken stock and simmer until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the duck pieces to the sauce, warm gently without boiling, and serve garnished with chopped parsley.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, which is cooked by roasting and then finished gently in the sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce as it reduces with the trimmings.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps soften the onion, carrot and celery.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and vegetables.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it simmers.

The step that matters

Warm the duck gently without boiling. Boiling toughens the proteins in the meat and can make it dry and stringy, so the duck should only be heated through in the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, pepper, butter, carrot, celery, flour, chicken):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, pepper, butter, carrot, celery, flour, chicken. 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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