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Side of Venison Collared

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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.

Prepare the venison

  1. Mix mace, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper, coarse sea salt, common salt, and bay leaves.

  2. Dry the venison with cloths and pack it down for 48 hours.

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

  4. Roll the venison into collars and bind tightly with tape, sewing with unbleached calico.

Bake and drain

  1. Lay paper shavings in a deep jar, add laurel and bay leaves, and place the collars on top.

  2. Pour ½ pint of water into the jar.

  3. Cover the jar with doubled paper.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for at least 3 hours.

  5. While warm, pour off the gravy.

  6. Let the collars drain overnight.

  7. Wipe the collars dry.

Pot and store

  1. Place the collars in a jar that fits without squeezing.

  2. Melt ¼ lb of clarified mutton suet with 12 oz of sweet lard.

  3. Pour the melted suet and lard over the meat to a thickness of 2 inches.

  4. Tie a wet bladder over the jar.

  5. Store in a cold, airy room for at least 2 months.

  6. To serve, place the jar in boiling water for 20 minutes to remove a collar.

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. Clove + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + laureltop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 meat that is rolled, cured and slowly baked into collars.
Bacon
Adds fat and moisture inside the lean venison as it cooks and matures.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the curing period.
Clarified mutton suet
Seals the cooked collars from air, adding fat that helps preserve them in storage.
Sweet lard
Adds fat to the sealing layer, keeping the meat protected and moist in the jar.

The step that matters

Baking the collars covered in water. Baking slowly in a covered jar with water keeps the lean venison from drying out and toughening. Pouring off the gravy while warm and draining well removes excess liquid that could spoil the meat during storage.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, clove, nutmeg, laurel, 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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