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Duck, Roast

A roasted duck stuffed with minced liver, sage, pepper, and salt, served with brown gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Duck, Roast

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.

Prepare

  1. Mix minced liver, sage, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stuff the mixture inside the duck.

  3. Hang the duck for 1-2 days to tenderize the flesh.

Roast

  1. Roast the duck in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting often.

  2. Dredge the duck with flour to create a frothy appearance.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy and apple sauce in separate tureens.

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

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

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  3. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies rich fat that renders during roasting.
Minced liver
Adds richness and savoury depth to the stuffing.
Flour
Helps the surface brown and gives the skin a crisp, light finish.

The step that matters

Basting often while roasting. Spooning rendered fat over the skin keeps the surface from drying out and promotes even browning. Frequent basting also helps the fat escape and the skin crisp, rather than leaving the bird greasy or pale.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, sage, pepper, 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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