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Sage and Onion Seasoning for Ducks and Geese

A seasoning of onions, butter, salt, and sage for ducks and geese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and sage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,628 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sage and Onion Seasoning for Ducks and Geese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and score each one in thin slices without cutting all the way through.

  2. Turn the onions and cut across the other way to create small pieces.

Cook

  1. Place the onions in a saucepan with butter and salt.

  2. Cover and cook on low heat for 30 minutes, shaking occasionally until softened but not burnt.

  3. Mix in the sage and continue cooking until well combined.

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. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the bulk of the seasoning and, as they soften, sweetness and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the onions soften gently without sticking.
Sage
Supplies the herbal, aromatic flavour that defines the seasoning.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions covered on low heat. Low, covered heat softens the onions and draws out their sugars slowly. Too much heat or too little attention can scorch the sugars, leaving a bitter, burnt taste instead of a sweet, mellow one.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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