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Wild Ducks, Wigeons, and Teal

Roasted wild ducks, wigeons, and teal served with a mustard-anchovy-mushroom catsup and port wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Wild Ducks, Wigeons, and Teal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roast the wild ducks, wigeons, and teal without stuffing, basting with butter.

Roast and serve

  1. Cook wild ducks for 25–30 minutes, wigeons for 20–25 minutes, and teal for 15–20 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, mix 2 teaspoons made mustard, 2 teaspoons essence of anchovy, a pinch cayenne, 1 tablespoon mushroom catsup, and ⅓ cup port wine.

  3. Pour the sauce into the cavity of the bird or mix it with melted butter and serve separately.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns the skin and adds richness and moisture as it bastes the birds.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce, balancing the sharp savory flavours.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the duck.

The step that matters

Roasting the birds for the stated times. Wild birds are lean and dry out quickly, and overcooking toughens the meat. Smaller birds such as teal need less time than larger ducks, so check doneness early.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, pepper, mushroom, port wine, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, pepper, mushroom, port wine, flour. 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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