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Roast Wild Duck

A roasted wild duck served with a sauce of Worcestershire, mushroom catsup, mustard, and lemon, optionally accompanied by carrot, onion, or claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Wild Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Keep the duck for several days in cold weather before dressing.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Optionally, parboil the duck with a small peeled carrot or onion before roasting.

Roast

  1. Bake the duck for 5 to 10 minutes without basting.

  2. Baste the duck frequently with butter and water for 30 to 40 minutes until cooked.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Combine Worcestershire sauce, mushroom catsup, salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice in a small saucepan.

  2. Heat the sauce, then remove from heat and stir in prepared mustard.

  3. Serve the duck on a hot dish with the sauce in a hot gravy boat and a cut lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Is the main protein, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
Butter
Bastes the duck, adding fat that carries flavor and helps the skin brown.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the sauce served with the duck.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp tang that balances the richness of the duck and sauce.

The step that matters

Baste the duck frequently with butter and water. Basting repeatedly transfers fat and moisture over the surface, which helps keep the lean meat from drying out and encourages even browning as the duck roasts.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, mushroom, pepper, lemon, mustard, onion):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, mushroom, pepper, lemon, mustard, onion. 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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