Name: Easy Christmas Roast Duck with Crispy Potatoes & Port Gravy
Yield: 10
Ingredients: a few sprigs of fresh rosemary; ½ nutmeg, grated; sea salt; freshly ground black pepper; 2 oranges or blood oranges, zested and halved; 2 x 2 kg whole ducks, necks and giblets reserved and roughly chopped; 8 cloves garlic, unpeeled; 3 red onions, peeled and quartered; a few stalks celery, trimmed and chopped into chunks; 3 carrots, scrubbed and chopped into chunks; ½ stick cinnamon; 1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped; a few bay leaves; 2 kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks; 1 litre water or organic chicken stock; 2 tablespoons plain flour; 200 ml red port

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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.

Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Rosemary + clovetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together519 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Rosemary + orangetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together261 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Rosemary + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,180 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rosemary, nutmeg, pepper, orange, clove, garlic, celery):

Carrotfits better
Spinachfits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rosemary, nutmeg, pepper, orange, clove, garlic, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Duck	100g cooked with skin	337
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Orange	1 medium (131g)	62
Red Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Rosemary	1 tsp dried (1.2g)	4
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

Easy Christmas Roast Duck with Crispy Potatoes & Port Gravy