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Ducks Stewed

A stew of duck cooked with gravy, red wine, onion, lemon peel, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Ducks Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half roast the duck.

Stew

  1. Place it in a stewpan with gravy, red wine, chopped onion, lemon peel, cayenne, and salt.

  2. Stew gently with the lid on until tender.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the duck from the sauce and boil the sauce quickly.

  2. Pour the sauce over the duck and add truffles and morels 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Red wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Red wine + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries moisture to the duck.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens into the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce quickly after removing the duck. Rapid boiling reduces and concentrates the liquid, thickening it and intensifying its flavour. Doing this with the duck removed keeps the meat from toughening or overcooking while the sauce thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, lemon, pepper):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, lemon, pepper. 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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