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Woodsman Stew

A hearty venison stew with bacon, tarragon vinegar, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion 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 ↓

Woodsman Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bacon

  1. Cook bacon slowly until fat rendered.

  2. Remove the cracklings.

Brown and simmer

  1. Dust venison with flour and brown it in the hot bacon fat.

  2. Move the meat to one side, add flour to the fat, mix, and pour in boiling stock or water.

  3. Stir until boiling.

  4. Add garlic, onion, tarragon vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  5. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

  6. Add lemon rind and Worcestershire sauce if using.

  7. Cook for 30 more minutes, checking for tenderness.

  8. Serve when ready.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 stew; slow simmering turns its connective tissue tender.
Bacon
Its rendered fat carries browning flavour into the venison and the sauce.
Flour
Dusting the meat and thickening the stock gives the stew a body.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, gamy meat and sauce.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic citrus oils that lift the flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Browning the venison in the hot bacon fat. Meat seared in hot fat develops deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. If the meat is crowded or the pan is not hot enough, it steams and turns grey, leaving the stew flat in taste.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, flour, garlic, onion, tarragon, vinegar, pepper. 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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