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Stewed Duck with Peas

A stew of duck, peas, butter, onion, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Duck with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Remove the gills from the duck.

  2. Season the duck with sage leaves, pepper, and salt.

  3. Half roast the duck.

Stew

  1. Place the duck in a stewpan with butter and enough water to cover it.

  2. Add the onion, parsley, mint, pepper, and salt.

  3. Let it stew until nearly done.

Finish with peas

  1. Strain the sauce.

  2. Add the peas to the sauce.

  3. Stew until everything is cooked through.

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

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

  2. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 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

Duck
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing and flavors the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the stewing liquid and carries flavor.
Onion
Softens as it stews, adding sweetness and aroma to the sauce.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the finished sauce.
Parsley
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma to the stew.
Mint
Adds a bright, aromatic note that lifts the rich duck sauce.

The step that matters

Let it stew until nearly done. Slow, gentle simmering breaks down the connective tissue in duck so the meat becomes tender. Stewing too hard can toughen the meat and reduce the sauce too quickly, so the timing and heat need watching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, mint, pepper, peas):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, mint, pepper, peas. 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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