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Side of Venison Collared

A preserved venison collar seasoned with mace, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, salt, bay leaves, and bacon, then baked and cured.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Side of Venison Collared

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure

  1. Mix mace, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper, coarse sea salt, and bay leaves in a bowl.

  2. Rub the mixture onto the venison, which should be dried with cloths.

  3. Pack the rubbed venison down for 48 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut channels in the venison and insert bacon slices 2.5 inches apart.

  2. Roll the meat into collars.

  3. Bind the collars tightly with broad tape and sew them with strong unbleached calico.

  4. Lay paper shavings in a deep jar and add laurel and bay leaves.

  5. Place the collars on top and pour in ½ pint of water.

  6. Cover with doubled paper.

  7. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for at least 3 hours until cooked.

  8. While warm, pour off the gravy into a basin to cool.

  9. Remove the collars and let them drain overnight.

Pot and store

  1. The next day, wipe the collars dry and place them in a jar that fits snugly.

  2. Pour clarified mutton suet and sweet lard (¼ lb lard to 12 oz suet) over the meat, covering it by 2 inches.

  3. Tie a wet bladder over the jar.

  4. Store in a cool place for at least 2 months.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison (in the method)
Forms the main body of the collars, becoming tender during the long slow bake.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the meat, drawing out moisture and seasoning it through the rest of the process.
Hard fat bacon
Adds fat and richness that keeps the lean venison moist as it cooks.
Clarified mutton suet
Seals the cooked meat under a layer of fat, protecting it during storage.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Baking at a low temperature until fully cooked. Baking gently at 300°F for at least 3 hours lets the dense collars cook through evenly without drying out. Cooking too hot can toughen the outside before the centre is done.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, clove, nutmeg, mutton):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, clove, nutmeg, mutton. 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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