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To Boil Ducks

This dish is boiled ducks served with onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Boil Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald and draw the ducks.

  2. Let them sit in warm water for a few minutes.

Soak in milk

  1. Place ducks in an earthen pan.

  2. Pour boiling milk over them.

  3. Let ducks soak in milk for 2-3 hours, then remove them.

Cook and serve

  1. Dredge with flour.

  2. Place in cold water, covering them.

  3. Boil ducks slowly for about 20 minutes.

  4. Serve ducks smothered with onion sauce.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Ducks
Provide the meat that is softened by soaking and then gently cooked through.
Boiling milk
Soaks into the birds, adding moisture and a mild, rich flavour to the meat.
Flour
Forms a light coating on the outside of the ducks before they are cooked.
Onion sauce
Adds savoury moisture and flavour when spooned over the cooked ducks.

The step that matters

Boil ducks slowly for about 20 minutes. Gentle simmering cooks the meat evenly and keeps it tender. Vigorous boiling toughens muscle proteins, tears the skin and can leave the birds dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sauce):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, 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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