Skip to main content
Main

To Hash Ducks

A hash of cold duck pieces simmered in gravy, port wine, onion, butter, and sauce thickened with flour, seasoned with pepper, salt, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Hash Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Cut the cold duck into joints.

  2. Warm the duck in gravy and port wine without boiling.

Make the sauce

  1. Dice the onion and fry it in butter without letting it color.

  2. Add enough boiling water to the pan to make sauce for the hash.

  3. Thicken the sauce with a little flour.

  4. Add the duck to the sauce to warm it, without boiling.

  5. Season with pepper, salt, and catsup.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Duck
Provides the main meat, which is gently warmed so it stays tender rather than tough.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the duck and onion instead of running thin.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion, adding richness and carrying flavor through the pan.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in butter.
Port wine
Adds depth and a touch of sweetness to the warmed sauce.

The step that matters

Warm the duck without boiling. Boiling toughens muscle proteins and makes the meat dry and stringy, so the duck should only be heated gently in the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More duck hash recipes

Wild 6 See all 26 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes