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Roast Duck

A whole duck roasted with bacon, salt, and water, served with gravy, sauce, and apple garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast 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. Weigh, dress, stuff, and truss the duck.

  2. Place the duck on a rack in a roasting pan.

  3. Season the duck and place strips of bacon over the breast.

  4. Pour 1 cup of boiling water and 1 tablespoon of salt into the pan.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes per pound plus an additional 20 minutes; baste frequently.

  2. Serve with Giblet Gravy or Olive Sauce and Currant Jelly or Apple Sauce; garnish with steamed apple rings and parsley.

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. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  2. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Olive + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,565 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Apple + parsleytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together612 recipes

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

  5. Currant + parsleytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main meat, whose fat renders during roasting to keep the flesh moist.
Bacon
Lays fat over the breast, adding moisture and savory flavor as it cooks.

The step that matters

Roast in a hot oven and baste frequently. Duck skin holds a thick layer of fat that must render slowly and evenly. Basting and the rack keep the bird moist while the skin browns and crisps, and the total time must follow the bird's weight.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, apple, parsley):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, apple, parsley. 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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