Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Saddle of Venison, Spiced
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the venison
Wash the venison in warm water and dry it with a clean cloth.
Cut the bacon into ½‑inch thick slices, remove the skin, and cut it into wedge‑shaped pieces 1½ inches long.
Make incisions in the venison and press the bacon pieces into the cuts.
Lard the venison closely and place it in a pickle for 6 days.
After 6 days, remove the venison, dry it off, and dredge it with flour.
Brown and cook
In a Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of butter and brown the venison on both sides quickly.
Add a little hot water as needed and baste often with the gravy.
Cover and cook slowly for 2½ hours.
When done, stir in ½ pint of hot water into the gravy and let it boil for a few minutes, stirring well.
Serve
Serve with stewed carrots, turnips, mashed potatoes, and jelly.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,874 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together562 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Venison saddle
- Forms the main lean meat that is larded, pickled, and braised until tender.
- Fat bacon
- Lards the lean venison, adding fat that keeps the meat moist during slow cooking.
- Butter
- Fats the pan for browning, building color and flavor on the venison surface.
- Flour
- Dredged onto the venison so the surface browns and thickens the pan gravy.
The step that matters
Browning the venison quickly. Searing the dredged surface in hot butter creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or letting it steam instead leaves the surface pale and the gravy weak.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, potato):
- Lemonfits better
- Limefits better
- Red currantfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, potato. 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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