Skip to main content
Main

Duck, Braised, with Turnips

Braised duck served with turnip slices and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Duck, Braised, with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Prepare the duck as if for roasting.

  2. Line a small pan with slices of bacon.

  3. Sprinkle parsley, chives, thyme, and lemon peel over the bottom.

  4. Place the duck in the pan and add carrot strips, onion, pepper, stock, and white wine.

Braise and make the gravy

  1. Baste frequently and simmer for one hour or until done.

  2. Fry the turnip slices in butter until light brown, then drain.

  3. Remove the duck and keep it hot.

  4. Add the turnips to the stewpan until tender, then remove them.

  5. Strain the gravy and thicken with a little roux or browned flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the duck on a dish with hot gravy poured over and garnish with turnips.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

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, which becomes tender through slow simmering in liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid, helping flavour the gravy.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the pan that seasons the duck from below.
Turnips
Brown in butter for flavour, then soften while they garnish the finished dish.
Roux or browned flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the duck and turnips.

The step that matters

Simmer the duck gently and baste it often. Slow, moist heat breaks down the connective tissue in the duck and keeps the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and reduce the braising liquid too quickly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, chive, thyme, lemon, carrot, clove):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, chive, thyme, lemon, carrot, clove. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes