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Duck, Hashed

A hash of roast duck, onion, orange, and claret simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Duck, Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the duck into serving pieces.

  2. Finely chop the onion and fry it in the butter until soft.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the flour and stir over heat until browned.

  2. Pour in the stock, stir until boiling, and simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Cut the orange rind into thin strips and add with the orange juice, claret, and duck to the sauce.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

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. Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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

Cold roast duck
Provides the meat that is cooked gently in the sauce until tender.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries flavour into the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and, when browned, adds a nutty, toasted flavour.
Stock
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the richness of the duck.
Orange
Adds bright citrus aroma and sweetness through its juice and rind.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Stirring the flour over heat until it browns cooks off its raw taste and builds a toasted, nutty flavour. Stopping too early leaves the sauce pasty and floury, while burning it makes the sauce bitter.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, onion, pepper):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, 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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