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Ducks Stewed with Red Cabbage

A stew of ducks cooked with red cabbage, butter, consomme, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ducks Stewed with Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Singe and truss the ducks, seasoning the inside with salt and pepper.

Stew the ducks

  1. Stew the ducks gently for 1.5 to 2 hours in a good braise from beef or cutlets.

Cook the cabbage

  1. Shred the cabbage finely, wash it, and drain it on a sieve for a few minutes.

  2. In a covered stewpan, stew the cabbage with butter, salt, and pepper, shaking it every 3-4 minutes.

  3. If the cabbage gets dry, add nearly a ladle of good consomme.

  4. Once tender, mix in the vinegar, place the cabbage on a dish, and lay the ducks over it.

  5. Cover and serve.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
Red cabbage
Forms the bed of the dish and absorbs the braising flavours as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while the cabbage stews in the covered pan.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich flavour of the cabbage.
Consomme
Adds moisture and savoury flavour when the cabbage begins to dry out.

The step that matters

Stew the ducks gently. Gentle, low heat lets the connective tissue in the duck break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender rather than tough and dry. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagethe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, vinegar. 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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