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Gravy and Stuffing for Ducks

A gravy made from duck giblets and a stuffing made from raw liver, sage, onion, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gravy and Stuffing for Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Boil all giblets except the liver in 1 pint of water with the chopped onion, salt, and pepper for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture and add a little browning, coratch, and mushroom catsup.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mince the raw liver with sage leaves, small onion, pepper, salt, butter, and grated bread crumbs.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Giblets (in the method)
Simmered in water to produce a flavourful base for the gravy.
Raw liver
Minced into the stuffing, adding richness and a soft, moist texture.
Grated bread crumbs
Bind the minced stuffing and absorb moisture from the liver and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture in the stuffing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, liver, sage, butter, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, liver, sage, butter, bread. 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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