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To Roast Wild Ducks

A roasted wild duck stuffed with soaked bread and port wine, basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 the soft bread in port wine or claret and stuff it into the duck.

  2. Flour the duck well and place it near a clear, brisk fire.

Roast and serve

  1. Baste the duck frequently with butter while it roasts.

  2. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, adjusting time for desired doneness.

  3. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the main meat, which roasting cooks until tender and browned on the outside.
Soft bread
Soaked and stuffed inside, it absorbs wine and adds moisture and body to the cavity.
Port wine or claret
Softens the bread and adds flavor and some acidity to the stuffing.
Butter
Basting adds fat that helps the skin brown and keeps the surface from drying.

The step that matters

Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, adjusting time for desired doneness. Wild duck is lean and can dry out or toughen quickly if overcooked. Checking doneness near the lower end of the time range helps keep the meat juicy, since the flesh continues to cook briefly after leaving the heat.

“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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