Skip to main content
Main

To Roast Wild Ducks

Roast wild ducks with bread soaked in port wine or claret, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Roast Wild Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak a bit of soft bread in port wine or claret and stuff it into the ducks.

  2. Flour the ducks well.

Roast

  1. Place them near a very clear and brisk fire to brown quickly while retaining their juices.

  2. Baste them generously with butter.

  3. If possible, let the spit turn rapidly.

  4. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes for general preference; add a few extra minutes for those who prefer them more cooked.

  5. For those who like them less cooked, reduce the roasting time.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Bread + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together321 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Port wine + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,167 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Soft bread
Absorbs the wine and fills the cavity, adding moisture and flavour to the inside of the duck.
Port wine or claret
Soaks into the bread, adding moisture and a fruity, aromatic flavour to the stuffing.
Flour
Coats the skin so it browns quickly and crisply in the fire.
Butter
Basted over the birds, it adds fat that promotes browning and richness on the skin.

The step that matters

Placing the ducks near a very clear, brisk fire. Intense, direct heat browns the flour-coated skin quickly, which seals in juices. Too little heat or too much distance lets the birds dry out before they colour.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes