Name: Saddle of Venison
Ingredients: 12 pounds venison; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 1 cup sugar; ¾ cup vinegar; 2 teacups tomatoes; 1 teaspoon nutmeg; ½ cup wine

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Saddle of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

Remove the top skin and some fat from the venison.
Skewer the meat to shape it round and cook for 45 minutes.
Cut down the back, remove the fillets, slice them, and season with salt and pepper.
Return the fillets to the meat.

Make the sauce and serve

In a saucepan, combine sugar, vinegar, tomatoes, essence from the venison, nutmeg, and wine to make a sauce.
Serve the sauce with the venison.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,493 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison: Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes in the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts the richness of the meat.
Tomatoes: Provide body, moisture and acidity to the sauce.
Wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, sugar, vinegar, tomato, wine):

Garlicfits better
Rosemaryfits better
Thymefits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, sugar, vinegar, tomato, wine. 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.