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Stewed Duck and Peas

A stew of roasted duck, peas, and gravy made with dripping, flour, lime, and apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and mint match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 846 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Duck and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Pluck and draw the duck, cut off the neck and feet at the joint, and truss the bird.

  2. Roast the duck in good dripping for 30 minutes.

  3. Lift the duck.

  4. Drain off the fat.

Make the gravy

  1. Add flour, lime juice, pepper, salt, and warm water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add apricot jam to the gravy.

Stew and serve

  1. Cut the duck into neat joints.

  2. Place the duck in a fireproof dish.

  3. Pour the gravy over the duck.

  4. Add the forcemeat balls.

  5. Gently stew for 30 minutes.

  6. Add warmed peas with sugar, mint, pepper, and salt.

  7. Add a teaspoon of sherry (optional).

  8. Fry the neck and gizzard.

  9. Add the liver to enrich the gravy (if desired).

  10. Serve with mashed potatoes.

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. Lime + minttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together846 recipes

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

  2. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  3. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Apricot + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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 roasting and then gentle stewing.
Dripping
Carries heat for roasting and adds rich flavour and browning to the duck.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the duck and forcemeat balls.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy, balancing the acidity of the lime.
Lime
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty gravy.
Peas
Add sweetness, colour and a soft, tender texture to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Drain off the fat. Duck releases a lot of fat during roasting. Leaving too much in the pan makes the gravy greasy and can dull its flavour, so the fat must be poured off before the gravy is made.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, lime, pepper, peas, sugar, mint, sherry):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, lime, pepper, peas, sugar, mint, sherry. 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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