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Stewed Duck

A slow‑cooked duck stew with ham, onion, sage, parsley, catsup, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Stewed Duck

Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Clean and divide the duck as you would a chicken for fricassee.

  2. Place the duck in a saucepan with the cold ham or salt pork.

  3. Cover with water and stew slowly for at least 1 hour with the lid on.

Stew and thicken

  1. Add the chopped onion, sage, parsley, catsup, and black pepper.

  2. Stew for another 30 minutes or until the duck is tender.

  3. Mix the brown sugar and browned flour with cold water, then stir the mixture into the stew.

  4. Bring the stew to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve in a deep covered dish with green peas.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Duck
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Browned flour
Thickens the stewing liquid into a smooth, slightly toasted gravy.
Ham or salt pork
Adds savory, salty flavor to the broth and the duck.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and body to the stewing liquid as it cooks down.
Brown sugar
Adds a hint of sweetness that balances the savory broth and catsup.

The step that matters

Stew slowly with the lid on until the duck is tender. Duck is a fatty, muscular bird that needs long, gentle simmering to break down its connective tissue. Rushing it with a hard boil leaves the meat tough and the fat unrendered.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sage, parsley, pepper, sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sage, parsley, pepper, sugar, 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.

More stewed duck recipes

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