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Mock Duck

A beefsteak coated in bread crumbs and baked to a browned, sliced mock duck.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Mock Duck

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Select a beefsteak weighing ¾ pound, free from loose fat or stringy pieces.

  2. Mix bread crumbs with salt, pepper, and finely chopped butter. Moisten the mixture slightly and spread it over the steak, ½ inch thick, without extending to the edges.

  3. Roll the steak like a jelly cake and tie it in three or four places with string.

Bake and serve

  1. Place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour, basting frequently until browned.

  2. Cut into slices and serve on a platter garnished with sprigs of parsley.

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. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Forms the main body of the roll and provides the meaty texture of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Form a stuffing layer that absorbs juices and adds a soft, savory texture inside the roll.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the stuffing and helps the exterior brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and carries fat and juices over the meat, helping it brown evenly rather than drying out during the hour in the oven.

“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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