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Wild Ducks

A stew of wild ducks simmered with shallot, herbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Wild Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ducks

  1. Remove the gills from the ducks and clean them thoroughly.

  2. In a pot, combine the ducks, shallot, sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cover and stew for 30 minutes or until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the ducks and strain the gravy, skimming off the fat.

  2. In a bowl, mix the cream, beaten egg, and browned flour.

  3. Gradually add this mixture to the gravy, stirring to prevent curdling.

  4. Add the wine and lemon juice, then bring to a boil.

  5. Pour the sauce over the ducks before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild ducks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered stewing.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Beaten egg
Thickens the sauce as it sets gently with heat, adding body and smoothness.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour and colour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its fattiness.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg mixture to the gravy. Egg proteins can curdle if the mixture meets hot liquid too quickly. Adding it gradually while stirring tempers it, keeping the sauce smooth.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream, egg, flour, wine, lemon):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, egg, flour, wine, lemon. 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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