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Wild Duck, Roast

Roasted wild duck served with gravy, port wine sauce, flour, fat, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wild Duck, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Truss the duck for roasting.

  2. If you dislike a fishy taste, cover a deep baking dish with ½ inch boiling water and add 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the duck in the water and bake for about 10 minutes, basting frequently.

Roast and serve

  1. Drain the duck, sprinkle lightly with flour, baste well with hot fat, and roast in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 20 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. Serve the duck slightly underdone to retain its flavor.

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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Port wine + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Port wine + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,167 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Port wine + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together424 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Is the main protein, cooked gently so the meat stays tender and juicy.
Fat
Basting with hot fat carries heat to the skin, helping it brown and crisp.
Flour
A light dusting helps the surface brown and gives the basting fat something to cling to.
Port wine sauce
Adds rich, sweet-tart depth to the finished duck as a sauce.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth alongside the roasted duck.

The step that matters

Serve the duck slightly underdone. Wild duck is lean and dries out quickly when overcooked. Leaving it a little rare keeps the meat moist and preserves its flavor.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, sauce, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, sauce, 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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