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Venison Tartare with Celeriac Remoulade, Chestnuts and Juniper Toast

This posh seasonal starter wouldn't look out of place in an upmarket restaurant, so it will certainly wow at home.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and chestnut work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 16 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep30 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Cut a cross in each fresh chestnut, roast on a tray for about 15 minutes until split, then peel while warm and finely chop.

  2. Peel the celeriac and grate it finely into a bowl of cold water with a splash of white wine vinegar. Drain well and pat dry.

  3. Crush the 5 dried juniper berries and the 1 dried juniper berry in a mortar or with the flat of a knife. Finely chop the garlic and shallot, and chop the parsley.

  4. Make the remoulade: mix the grated celeriac with the crème fraîche, Dijon, wholegrain mustard, the remaining white wine vinegar, half the parsley, half the cornichons, and salt and black pepper to taste. Chill.

  5. Rub the venison all over with a drizzle of olive oil and the crushed juniper and season with salt. Sear in a very hot dry pan for 1 to 2 minutes per side, then cook until the thickest part reaches 145°F (63°C) internal, rest 3 minutes, and chill.

  6. Chop the cooled venison very finely by hand. Mix with the shallot, cornichons, chestnut, Tabasco, tomato ketchup, anchovy fillets, the remaining parsley, and salt and black pepper to taste.

  7. Toast the sourdough slices until golden. Rub them with the cut garlic and a drizzle of olive oil while hot, then cut into pieces.

  8. Serve the venison mixture topped with a spoonful of the celeriac remoulade and a pasteurized quail egg yolk for each portion, with the juniper toast on the side. Use only pasteurized quail eggs since the yolks are raw.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Venison + chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Garlic + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, olive, garlic, white wine, vinegar, tomato, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Onionbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, olive, garlic, white wine, vinegar, tomato, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).