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Canvasback Ducks Broiled

Broiled canvasback ducks seasoned with salt, pepper, and oil, served with drawn butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Canvasback Ducks Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Pick the ducks.

  2. Singe the ducks.

  3. Draw the ducks.

  4. Thoroughly wipe the ducks.

  5. Cut a slit through the back of each duck without detaching them.

Season and broil

  1. Season the ducks with a good pinch of salt, half a pinch of pepper, and 1 tablespoon of oil.

  2. Roll the ducks well in the seasoning.

  3. Broil the ducks for 7 minutes on each side.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish.

  2. Spread ½ cup of drawn butter over the ducks.

  3. Decorate with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Canvasback ducks
Provide the main meat, which cooks through under direct heat while the skin crisps.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the birds as they are served.
Oil
Helps the seasoning cling to the skin and promotes even browning under the broiler.

The step that matters

Broil the ducks for 7 minutes on each side. Direct broiler heat browns the skin quickly, so the birds can dry out or scorch if left too long. Turning them once helps both sides cook evenly.

“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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