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A Duck with Green Peas

A stew of duck simmered with green peas, lettuce, herbs, and a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Duck with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat a deep stewpan over medium heat and add the butter.

  2. Singe the duck, flour it, and turn it in the pan for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pour out all the fat, leaving the duck in the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the gravy, peas, chopped lettuces, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cover and let stew for 30 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally.

  3. Grate nutmeg into the stew and add beaten mace.

  4. Thicken the sauce by adding butter rolled in flour or by whisking an egg yolk with cream. Shake the pan for 3-4 minutes.

  5. Remove the sweet herbs.

Serve

  1. Place the duck on a dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the duck.

  3. Garnish with chopped boiled mint if desired.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lettuce + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main meat and rendered fat that flavours the pan and sauce.
Flour
Coats the duck and thickens the sauce as its starch cooks in the liquid.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding richness and smoothness when whisked with cream.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavour.
Peas
Add sweetness and soft texture as they stew in the gravy.
Fresh butter
Carries flavour and adds richness when used to start the pan and thicken the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently, but if the sauce boils after it is added it can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir while shaking the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, nutmeg, flour, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, nutmeg, flour, egg. 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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