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Wild Duck, Roasted

A roasted wild duck served slightly underdone, basted in butter and seasoned with flour, gravy, wine sauce, and lemons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wild Duck, Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) 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 tin with ½ inch of boiling water and add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.

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

  4. Remove the duck, dry it, and sprinkle lightly with flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Baste well with hot butter and roast in front of a clear fire or bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Wild duck
Provides the meat, which is cooked briefly so it stays moist and tender.
Butter
Basting fat that adds richness and promotes gentle browning on the skin.
Flour
Dusted on the dried skin to help it brown and crisp during roasting.
Coarse sea salt (in the method)
Dissolved in the boiling water to draw out a fishy taste from the duck.

The step that matters

Serving the duck slightly underdone. Wild duck is very lean and dries out quickly when overcooked, so leaving it a little pink keeps the meat juicy and preserves its flavor.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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