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Roast Wild Duck

A roasted wild duck, covered with bacon and seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional stuffing of crumbs, nuts, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Roast Wild Duck

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cover the breast of the duck with thin slices of bacon. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Make the stuffing

  1. For stuffing, mix cracker or bread crumbs, chopped nuts, cream or broth, butter, onion juice, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Stuff the duck with the mixture if desired.

Roast

  1. Roast in the oven, basting often with the fat in the pan.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 roasted with its own fat for flavour and moisture.
Bacon
Covers the breast, where its fat bastes the meat and keeps it from drying out.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and fat, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a rich, toasty flavour to the stuffing.
Cream or broth
Moistens the stuffing so the crumbs soften and hold together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the stuffing brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Basting often with the pan fat. Wild duck is lean, so regular basting with the rendered fat keeps the meat moist and promotes even browning as the surface heats.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, bread, cream, butter, onion):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lima beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, cream, butter, onion. 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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