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Roast Ducklings

Roast ducklings stuffed with a potato, almond, and onion mixture, then roasted and served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Ducklings

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Whip the mashed potatoes with butter and cream until creamy.

  2. Season with celery salt and white pepper, then mix in the chopped almonds.

Stuff and truss

  1. Stuff the cleaned ducks with the mixture without packing tightly.

  2. Truss the legs and wings with cotton twine.

Roast and serve

  1. Rub the duck breasts with the split onion, then dust with pepper, salt, and flour.

  2. Place the ducks on a roasting rack and add boiling water to the pan, then cover.

  3. Roast in a very hot oven (400°F) for the first 15 minutes.

  4. Lower the temperature to moderate (350°F) and cook for 10 minutes per pound, still covered.

  5. Uncover, baste with gravy and butter, then dredge with flour and brown.

  6. Skim the fat from the gravy, thicken with browned flour, and serve with currant jelly.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Adds body and moisture to the stuffing, keeping the filling soft and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the duck brown when basted.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour to the stuffing.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich duck and gravy.

The step that matters

Covered roasting before uncovering. Keeping the ducks covered with boiling water in the pan at first steams and gently cooks the meat. Uncovering too early can dry the surface and leave the skin unevenly browned or the meat tough.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, cream, celery, almond, onion, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, cream, celery, almond, onion, 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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