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Canvas Back Ducks

A roasted duck stuffed with onion, bacon, herbs, and seasoned, served with gravy and optional wine, Worcestershire sauce, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Canvas Back Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Hang the duck until tender, using a carrot inside to remove any fishy smell.

  2. Stuff the duck with chopped onion, scraped bacon, sage, parsley, marjoram, thyme, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cover the duck with thin slices of bacon, wrap it in white paper, and tie it securely.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast the duck before a brisk fire, or bake it in the oven.

  2. If baking, add 1 pint of water and a small piece of butter to the pan.

  3. When nearly done, thicken the gravy with browned flour.

Serve

  1. For serving, pour hot wine over the duck and garnish with lemon slices.

  2. Serve with Worcestershire sauce and jelly for added 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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 is tenderised by hanging before cooking.
Bacon
Covers and bastes the bird, adding fat and savoury flavour as it cooks.
Onion
Fills the cavity, adding aromatic sweetness that perfumes the meat during roasting.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pan liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with browned flour. Flour must be added near the end of cooking; stirred into hot liquid it thickens quickly and can form lumps if added too early or without being whisked smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, parsley, marjoram, thyme, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, parsley, marjoram, thyme, pepper, butter, 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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