Name: Wild Duck and Widgeons
Ingredients: Wild duck; Orange sauce; Gravy; Watercress or salad; Orange salad

Why it works: Orange and watercress work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Wild Duck and Widgeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wild duck and widgeons by roasting them.
Serve with orange sauce and gravy.
Accompany with watercress or a salad, and optionally orange salad.

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.

Orange + watercresstop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + watercresstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together295 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Orange + saucetop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together723 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).