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Wild Duck, Roast

A roasted wild duck served slightly undercooked, with gravy, port wine sauce, lemon, flour, and fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wild Duck, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Truss the duck for roasting.

  2. Cover a deep baking dish with ½ inch of boiling water, add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, and place the duck in it for 10 minutes, basting frequently.

Roast and serve

  1. Drain the duck, sprinkle lightly with flour, baste well with hot fat, and roast in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 20 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. Serve the duck slightly undercooked to retain its flavor.

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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Port wine + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Port wine + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together424 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Is the main protein, carrying nearly all of the dish's flavor and texture.
Flour
Dusted on the surface to help the skin brown and crisp during roasting.
Fat
Basting fat that carries heat to the skin, promoting browning and moisture retention.

The step that matters

Roasting the duck slightly undercooked. Wild duck is lean and dries out quickly when overcooked. Pulling it while still slightly pink keeps the meat tender and juicy, which is why the record asks for it.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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