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To Roast Wild Ducks

Roasted wild ducks stuffed with soaked bread, floured, and cooked over a brisk fire while basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 a bit of soft bread in port wine or claret.

  2. Stuff the wild ducks with the soaked bread.

  3. Flour the ducks well.

Roast

  1. Place them near a clear, brisk fire to brown quickly.

  2. Baste the ducks constantly with butter.

  3. Rotate the spit rapidly if possible.

  4. Roast for 15-20 minutes for general preference.

  5. For well-done, add a few extra minutes.

  6. For those who prefer them less cooked, reduce the time.

  7. Teal ducks require 10-15 minutes for a fashionable serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Wild ducks
Main protein; roasting cooks the meat while the skin browns and crisps.
Soft bread
Soaked in wine and stuffed inside, it adds moisture to the cavity as it cooks.
Port wine or claret
Soaks into the bread, adding moisture and a fruity, aromatic flavour.
Butter
Basted over the birds, it adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour.
Flour
Dusted on the ducks, it helps the surface brown quickly and deeply.

The step that matters

Basting constantly with butter. Butter fat carries heat to the skin and helps it brown evenly. Lean game dries out quickly over a hot fire, so frequent basting keeps the surface moist and golden.

“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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