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Brown Fricassee of Venison

A stew of browned venison steaks simmered with herbs, onion, cloves, and a butter‑flour‑tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Brown Fricassee of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the venison steaks until browned in hot dripping.

  2. Place the steaks in a stewpan with water, sweet herbs, onion, cloves, pepper, and salt, then boil for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Roll butter in flour, then mix with catsup and vinegar.

  2. Stir this mixture into the fricassee and serve hot.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison steaks
Main protein; browning them in hot dripping builds the savoury flavour of the dish.
Butter
Fat that, kneaded with flour, forms a roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Starch that thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Catsup or tomato sauce
Adds tomato sweetness and acidity, deepening the colour and flavour of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Rolling butter in flour before adding it to the fricassee. Flour mixed into butter and added to hot liquid can clump if not blended smoothly first. Working the butter and flour into an even paste lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than becoming lumpy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, onion, clove, pepper, butter, flour, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, onion, clove, pepper, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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