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Gebratene Ente — Roast Duck

A roast duck stuffed with a bread, butter, egg, shallot, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and raw liver mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Gebratene Ente — Roast Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Soak the bread in cold water and press it out.

  2. Warm the butter and mix it with the bread.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, grated shallot, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Chop the raw liver and stir it into the mixture.

Roast the duck

  1. Stuff the duck with the filling and roast until a delicate pale brown.

  2. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes at a brisk fire, depending on the size of the duck.

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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaked and pressed, it gives the stuffing body and a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the filling tender.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape while cooking.
Duck liver
Adds richness and a deeper, meaty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Stuff the duck and roast at a brisk fire. The stuffing is dense and the bird must cook through without the outside overbrowning. Judging the time by the duck's size, rather than the clock alone, helps the centre reach safe doneness while the skin turns the intended delicate pale brown.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, pepper, nutmeg, liver):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, pepper, nutmeg, liver. 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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