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Ducks with Young Peas

A stew of roasted duck pieces and young peas, finished with cream and a leason of egg yolks and pastry border.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ducks with Young Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the duck and peas

  1. Cut the roasted ducks into pieces, leaving the back bone intact.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the duck pieces and young peas.

  3. Add the cream and cook until the peas are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with a little cream to create a leason.

  2. Stir the leason into the stewpan and mix well.

  3. Serve in a tureen or dish, garnished with a border of pastry.

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. Peas + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Peas + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Roasted duck
Provides the main meat and savoury flavour of the dish.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture that complements the rich duck.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the peas cook to a soft, silky texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they gently set, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the leason. Egg yolks thicken by gently setting. If the stewpan boils after the leason goes in, the yolks scramble and the sauce turns grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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