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Venison Bolognese Sauce

A hearty sauce made from venison, onions, mushrooms, garlic, carrots, and tomato purée, simmered slowly with cider or wine.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Venison Bolognese Sauce

Serves 4
Timeat least 3 hours

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Sauté the onions, mushrooms, and garlic in the oil until well softened.

  2. Add the venison and stir well until it has all (more or less) changed colour.

  3. Add sufficient dry cider to cover, but not too deeply.

  4. Add the stock cube (only if you are using wine or cider), bay leaves, grated carrot, and tomato purée, and stir well.

  5. Simmer very gently for at least 3 hours, stirring occasionally and replenishing the liquid if it gets too dry. The sauce is edible after about 40 minutes but is better after 3 or 4 hours; it can be cooked in a slow cooker for 8 hours or cooled overnight and reheated.

Finish and serve

  1. About 30–40 minutes before serving remove the bay leaves, add the herbes de Provence, and adjust the salt.

  2. Just before serving, add freshly‑ground black pepper.

  3. Serve over al dente pasta sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

969Calories
82 gProtein
29 gFat
89 gCarbs

Counts 16 of 18 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 16 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Beef100g cooked250
Pasta1 cup cooked (140g)220
Venison100g cooked158
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Corn1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Olive1 large (4g)4
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Sunflower Oilnot in our table0
Cidernot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the main meaty body and rich flavour of the sauce as it browns and simmers.
Tomato purée
Adds concentrated tomato flavour, sweetness and colour that deepen during long simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness that balances the acidity of the cider or wine.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the flavour base of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and savoury depth, adding umami to the sauce.
Dry cider or wine
Provides acidity and liquid that tenderises the meat during long, gentle simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer very gently for a long time. Gentle, prolonged simmering breaks down the connective tissue in stewing venison, making it tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat and reduces the sauce too quickly, so the liquid must be topped up.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mushroom, garlic, olive, venison, cider, tomato):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mushroom, garlic, olive, venison, cider, tomato. 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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