A whole stewed duck with pale golden skin in a deep earthenware dish, surrounded by small whole white onions, bright green peas and pieces of bacon in a thin brown sauce. — Whole stewed duck with small onions, green peas and bacon in its sauce.

Stewed Duck and Peas (1864)

Name: Stewed Duck and Peas
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 2 h 15 min
Total time: 2 h 45 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 5 lb whole duck; 2 tbsp butter; ¼ lb streaky bacon, cut in short strips; 1 tbsp all-purpose flour; 4 cups water; 20 small white boiling onions, peeled; 1 small bunch parsley, tied with string; 1 bay leaf; 2 whole cloves; 2 cups shelled green peas, fresh or frozen; 1 tsp salt; ½ tsp black pepper

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Stewed duck and peas from a recipe written as a poem: a whole duck stewed with butter, streaky bacon, twenty small onions, parsley, bay and cloves, finished with green peas.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 30, 2026

Recipe makes: 1 duck, 4 servings
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 2 hr 15 min
Total: 2 hr 45 min

Half an hour to truss the duck and peel the onions, then about 2¼ hours at the stove: 20 minutes browning, 1½ hours simmering, 10 minutes for the peas and 15 to skim and finish the sauce.

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Whole stewed duck with small onions, green peas and bacon in its sauce.

The story behind the recipe

Stewed duck and peas comes to the table in A Poetical Cook-Book as a poem, four stanzas long and unsigned, in a Philadelphia cookbook dedicated to the Sanitary Fair of June 1864. The speaker offers “all my kitchen lore” to a friend invited to dinner and then walks through the pot: a trussed duck stewed in butter with streaky bacon, a little flour and water, a crowd of onions, herbs, two cloves and, last, the peas.

What does the poem actually tell you?

More than its jingle suggests. Most receipts in Moss’s book keep their verse above the method, as a motto. This one carries the method in the verse, and the rhyme pins down four exact amounts: a tablespoonful of flour, a quart of water, twenty onions and two cloves. Everything else is left to the cook. The poem never weighs the duck or measures the peas, gives no time for the simmer, and closes the sauce with “pepper, salt, and other things / I need not here explain.” It assumes a reader who had stewed a bird before and needed only the order of things.

No name is signed under this poem, though most of the book’s verses carry one, and its author is unknown. How the rhyming receipt fits among the book’s borrowed epigraphs is told in What Was in the 1864 Sanitary Fair Cookbook?

Making it today

Twenty onions to one duck only makes sense if they are small, so this version uses boiling onions about an inch across, our reading of the poem. A modern duck gives off a great deal of fat as it stews, and skimming it before the sauce is finished is the one step the poem does not mention. The peas go in for the last few minutes so they stay green and whole; the poem adds them before the long simmer. Oyster Loaves (1864) make the fish course before it.

I give thee all my kitchen lore,
Though poor the offering be;
I’ll tell thee how ’tis cooked, before
You come to dine with me.
The duck is truss’d from head to heels,
Then stew’d with butter well,
And streaky bacon, which reveals
A most delicious smell.
When duck and bacon, in a mass,
You in a stewpan lay,
A spoon around the vessel pass,
And gently stir away;
A tablespoonful of flour bring,
A quart of water plain,
Then in it twenty onions fling,
And gently stir again.
A bunch of parsley, and a leaf
Of ever verdant bay,
Two cloves,—I make my language brief,—
Then add your peas you may;
And let it simmer till it sings
In a delicious strain;
Then take your duck, nor let the strings
For trussing it remain.
The parsley fail not to remove,
Also the leaf of bay;
Dish up your duck,—the sauce improve
In the accustom’d way,
With pepper, salt, and other things
I need not here explain;
And if the dish contentment brings,
You’ll dine with me again.

[Maria J. Moss]A Poetical Cook-Book (Philadelphia: Caxton Press of C. Sherman, Son & Co., 1864), Stewed Duck and Peas, pp. 48–49

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Ingredients

For 1 duck, 4 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 1 duck, 4 servings.

Whole duck5 lb
Butter2 tbsp
Streaky bacon, cut in short strips0.25 lb
All-purpose flour1 tbsp
Water4 cups
Small white boiling onions, peeled20
Small bunch parsley, tied with string1
Bay leaf1
Cloves2
Shelled green peas, fresh or frozen2 cups
Salt1 tsp
Black pepper1/2 tsp

Ingredients as written here

5 lb whole duck
2 tbsp butter
¼ lb streaky bacon, cut in short strips
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
4 cups water
20 small white boiling onions, peeled
1 small bunch parsley, tied with string
1 bay leaf
2 whole cloves
2 cups shelled green peas, fresh or frozen
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper

Equipment

Large Dutch oven or heavy pot with a lid, about 7 quarts
Kitchen string
Ladle for skimming
Instant-read thermometer
Warm serving dish

Instructions

Take the giblets out of the duck, trim off any loose fat at the neck and cavity, and pat it dry. Prick the skin all over with a fork, without going into the meat. Tie the legs together and the wings close to the body with kitchen string.
Melt the butter in the Dutch oven over medium heat and cook the bacon until its fat runs and it begins to color, about 5 minutes.
Lay in the duck breast side down and brown it, turning it every few minutes with two wooden spoons, until the skin is golden on all sides, about 15 minutes. Stir the bacon around it as it browns so nothing sticks.
Lift the duck onto a plate and spoon off all but a thin film of fat from the pot. Sprinkle in the flour and stir it into the bacon and fat for a minute.
Pour in the water a little at a time, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot, and bring it to a simmer. Add the onions, the parsley, the bay leaf and the cloves, and return the duck, breast up, with any juices from the plate.
Cover and simmer very gently over low heat for about 1½ hours, turning the duck once halfway through. It is done when a leg moves easily in its joint and the thickest part of the thigh reads at least 165°F (74°C).
Add the peas and simmer, uncovered, until tender, about 5 minutes for frozen peas and 8 to 10 for fresh.
Lift the duck onto a warm dish, cut away the strings and keep it warm. Take out the parsley, the bay leaf and the cloves.
Tilt the pot and ladle off as much of the clear fat as you can. Boil the sauce for a few minutes if it is thin, season it with the salt and pepper, and taste.
Spoon the onions, peas and bacon around the duck and pour the sauce over. Carve at the table.

Nutrition

780calories per serving

Recipe makes: 1 duck, 4 servings
Servings: 4

Estimated per serving (4) from USDA FoodData Central values for roasted duck meat and skin, bacon, butter, onions and green peas, assuming most of the rendered fat is skimmed off.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Written for one duck of about 5 pounds, which serves 4. For two ducks use a pot wide enough to hold both, double everything else, and allow about 15 minutes more simmering.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

The flour, water, onions, bay leaf and two cloves follow the poem’s numbers. We chose the size of the duck, the butter, bacon, parsley, peas, salt and pepper and the simmering time, and added pricking the skin, skimming the fat, boiling down the sauce and putting the peas in at the end. Save the skimmed duck fat in the refrigerator for roasting potatoes. Chill leftovers within 2 hours and reheat them until the sauce bubbles and the meat reaches 165°F (74°C). Contains gluten (the flour).

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.