Skip to main content
Main

Ducks with a Purke of Carrots

A carrot purée served with stewed ducks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,505 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ducks with a Purke of Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Make the carrot purée

  1. Scrape and quarter the carrots, then boil them until very tender.

  2. Drain the carrots in a sieve, then stir them in a pan with a good amount of butter.

  3. Mash the carrots until the butter begins to fry, then add ½ cup of consomme.

  4. Once dry, add more consomme and 2-3 tablespoons of plain sauce.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt and a small bit of sugar, then rub the mixture through a tammy into a large dish.

  6. Heat the mixture again in a stewpan, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  7. If the mixture is not strong enough, add a bit of glaze.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a dish and place the stewed ducks in the center.

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. Carrot + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,509 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the bulk of the purée, providing flavour, colour and body once mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns slightly as the purée cooks down.
Consomme
Adds liquid and savoury flavour, and is reduced until the purée is dry enough to hold.
Plain sauce
Adds body and savoury depth to the purée.
Ducks
Serve as the main protein, placed on the purée as the centrepiece.

The step that matters

Drying the mashed carrots before adding more consomme. Carrots must be mashed and cooked until the butter begins to fry and the mixture is dry before more liquid is added. Adding liquid too early leaves the purée thin and watery, and it will not hold a smooth, firm texture when rubbed through a tammy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, sauce, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, sauce, sugar. 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

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes