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Mock Duck

A stuffed beef steak filled with bread, pork, sage, onion, marjoram, and salt, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mock Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Fill the beef steak with a dressing made of chopped bread, pork, sage, onions, marjoram, and salt.

  3. Sew the steak up and place it in a pan.

  4. Add 1 pint of water to the pan and cover tightly.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook slowly in the oven for 3 hours.

  2. Remove the lid and brown the top quickly.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef rump steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, slow cooking.
Chopped bread
Soaks up juices and keeps the stuffing moist and light inside the steak.
Chopped pork
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the stuffing as it cooks.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour that suits pork and beef.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a warm, floral herbal aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Cook slowly with the lid on. Long, gentle heat with a tightly covered pan lets the tough rump steak break down and turn tender while keeping it moist. Cooking too hot or uncovered can dry the meat before it softens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pork, sage, marjoram):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pork, sage, marjoram. 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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