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Venison Marinade

A liquid mixture of carrot, onion, herbs, vinegar, water, salt, pepper, and mace used to marinate venison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Venison Marinade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marinade

  1. In a stew-pan, combine carrot, onions, mixed herbs, parsley, and butter or beef dripping.

  2. Fry for 5 minutes.

  3. Add vinegar, water, salt, pepper, and mace.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture and use or bottle as needed.

Marinate the venison

  1. Soak a piece of venison in the mixture for 3 to 4 days, turning it regularly.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides acidity that helps tenderise the meat and carries the flavour of the aromatics.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and release their flavour into the liquid.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the marinade as it simmers.
Butter or clarified beef dripping
Fat that carries the flavour of the herbs and spices during the initial frying.
Black pepper
Adds aromatic heat that infuses the liquid during simmering.

The step that matters

Marinating the venison for 3 to 4 days. The acid in the vinegar works slowly on the surface of the meat, so the full soak time matters. Turning the piece regularly keeps every side in contact with the liquid, so the marinade penetrates evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, parsley, butter, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, parsley, butter, 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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