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Hashed Wild Duck

A hash of roasted wild duck pieces simmered in beef gravy, Bordeaux wine, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hashed Wild Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Lightly roast the wild ducks and let them cool.

  2. Cut the ducks into joints and skin them, reserving the best pieces for the salmi.

Make the sauce

  1. Put the trimmings into a stewpan with beef gravy, Bordeaux wine, fried onions, sweet herbs, peppercorns, cloves, shallots, sugar, and salt.

  2. Boil gently for 2 hours until reduced to 1 pint, then remove the fat.

  3. Mix 1 ounce of butter and 1 ounce of flour into a smooth paste over heat.

  4. Add the paste to the gravy and boil until reduced to half a pint.

Finish

  1. Add the duck pieces and heat through without boiling.

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. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Wild ducks
Provide the meat for the salmi, with trimmings flavouring the sauce.
Beef gravy
Forms the base of the sauce, supplying savoury depth as it reduces.
Bordeaux wine
Adds acidity and fruity aroma that balance the rich gravy.
Butter and flour
Make a roux that thickens the sauce to a smooth, coating body.
Fried onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth through browning as they cook.

The step that matters

Add the duck pieces and heat through without boiling.. Boiling toughens cooked meat and can make it dry, so the duck should warm gently in the finished sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, wine, onion, shallot, sugar, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, wine, onion, shallot, sugar, butter, flour. 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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