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Canvas-back Ducks Deessed Plain

Roasted canvas-back ducks served plain with a simple gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and currant work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Canvas-back Ducks Deessed Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Truss the ducks without washing them, but wipe them inside and out with a clean, dry cloth.

  2. Roast the ducks before a hot fire for 30 minutes.

  3. Half roast the ducks, saving the gravy that falls from them.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine giblets with a little water, butter rolled in flour, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Cover and stew gently to make gravy.

Stew and serve

  1. Cut the ducks into pieces and place them in a large stew-pan with the reserved gravy (skim off the fat) and just enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Set the pan over moderate heat and let them stew gently until done.

  3. Remove the giblets, then pour the gravy from the saucepan over the ducks.

  4. Stir in the port wine and currant jelly.

  5. Serve the ducks as hot as possible.

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. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Canvas-back ducks
Provide the meat that is roasted, then stewed until done in the gravy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tartness that balances the rich gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when rolled into the butter and stirred into the liquid.

The step that matters

Half roast the ducks before stewing. Partial roasting browns the birds and renders some fat, so the stew stays rich rather than greasy. Skimming the fat from the reserved gravy keeps the sauce clean-flavoured.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, port wine. 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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