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Wild Ducks, Widgeons, and Teal

A roast of wild duck, widgeon, and teal served with a mustard-anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Wild Ducks, Widgeons, and Teal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast the birds

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roast the wild duck for 25‑30 minutes, the widgeon for 20‑25 minutes, and the teal for 15‑20 minutes over a brisk fire.

  3. Baste the birds well with butter to froth them.

Make and serve the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix 2 teaspoons of made mustard, 2 teaspoons of essence of anchovy, a pinch of cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon of mushroom catsup, and 2 tablespoons of port wine.

  2. Pour the sauce into the apron of the bird or stir it into melted butter and serve separately.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Basting with butter adds fat that froths and browns the skin and keeps the birds moist.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the rich game meat.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce.
Mushroom catsup
Adds a savoury, umami depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Roasting times by bird. Wild duck, widgeon and teal are different sizes, so each needs its own time. Overcooking the small teal dries the lean meat, while undercooking the duck leaves it underdone.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, pepper, mushroom, port wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, pepper, mushroom, port wine. 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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