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Duck Stew

A stew of roasted duck with carrots, green onions, shallots, parsley, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Duck Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast the duck

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Truss the duck firmly and roast it half-cooked over a quick fire.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a pan, fry the minced shallots in butter until delicate.

  2. Add the chopped carrots, green onions, and parsley to the pan.

Stew

  1. Once the duck is half-roasted, place it in a stewpan.

  2. Cover the duck partially with boiling gravy or Espagnole sauce.

  3. Cook for 1 to 1.25 hours, turning the duck occasionally.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Its fat and connective tissue soften and moisten during slow braising, giving the stew its main body.
Shallots
Softened gently in butter, they add mild sweetness and aroma to the finished sauce.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness and body into the cooking liquid as they stew.
Butter
Carries the frying flavour and helps the shallots soften gently without browning.
Gravy or espagnole sauce
Supplies the liquid that braises the duck and forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Half-roasting the duck before stewing. Roasting only partway renders some fat and sets the skin, then the duck finishes gently in liquid. Roasting fully first would leave the meat dry and tough after the long stew.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, shallot, butter, sauce):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, shallot, butter, sauce. 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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