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Canvas-back Ducks Dressed Plain

A roasted canvas-back duck served with a gravy of port wine, currant jelly, and giblet stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Dressed Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the ducks and wipe them inside and out with a clean dry cloth.

  2. Prepare the gravy by stewing the giblets in a saucepan with a little water, butter, salt, and cayenne, covered.

Roast and stew

  1. Roast the ducks before a quick fire for 30 minutes.

  2. Half roast the ducks.

  3. Save the gravy that falls from the ducks.

  4. 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.

  5. Set the pan over moderate heat and stew gently until done.

  6. Remove the giblets.

  7. Pour the gravy from the saucepan over the ducks.

  8. Stir in the port wine and currant jelly.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on a large dish placed on a heater.

  2. Serve 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 main meat, which is roasted and then stewed until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the giblet gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the fat and juices.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Half roast the ducks. Only partial roasting sets the surface and renders some fat before stewing. Overcooking here leaves the meat dry, since it finishes cooking in the pan.

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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