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Roast Duck

A roasted duck stuffed with a forcemeat of onions, sage, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, and liver, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Boil the onions for 10 minutes.

  2. Chop the boiled onions finely.

  3. Mix the chopped onions with sage, breadcrumbs, pepper, and salt.

  4. Boil the liver for 5 minutes. Chop the boiled liver.

  5. Add the chopped liver to the mixture.

Roast and serve

  1. Stuff the duck with the forcemeat.

  2. Truss the duck for roasting.

  3. Roast the duck in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 45 minutes, basting frequently.

  4. Twenty minutes before it is done, sprinkle the duck with flour, pepper, and salt.

  5. Serve the duck with good brown gravy.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Sage + livertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide moisture and sweetness to the forcemeat, softening as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the chopped onions and liver into a stuffing.
Liver of the duck
Adds rich, savory flavor and body to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during roasting. Duck has a lot of fat under the skin, and regular basting helps keep the meat moist while the fat renders and the skin browns evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, pepper, 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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