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To Stew Duck

A duck is stuffed, roasted, then stewed in gravy with oysters, anchovy, shallot, sage, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Stew Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare the stuffing by mixing suet, bread crumbs, oysters, anchovy, shallot, sage, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and raw eggs.

  2. Stuff the duck with the mixture and half roast it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the duck in a stewpan with gravy, chopped shallot, and browning sauce.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  3. Add truffles or mushrooms if desired.

  4. Stew for 30 minutes.

  5. Transfer the duck to a dish and pour the gravy and mushrooms over it.

  6. Garnish with notched lemon.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main body of the dish, with its meat cooking tender in the stew.
Raw eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together around the duck.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Stuff the duck with the mixture and half roast it.. Raw egg in the stuffing must reach a safe, set state while the duck stays tender. Partial roasting firms the stuffing and sets the eggs before the stew, so the bird does not overcook or leave the filling raw.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, oyster, anchovy, shallot, nutmeg, pepper, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, oyster, anchovy, shallot, nutmeg, pepper, egg. 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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