Name: Venison-Collops, a Scotch Dish
Ingredients: Venison, cut into thin cutlets; Mixed spices, to taste; ¼ cup strong brown gravy; ¼ cup claret; Fried breadcrumbs; 1 teaspoon fine sugar; 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Why it works: White wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,776 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Venison-Collops, a Scotch Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

Season the venison cutlets highly with mixed spices.
Brown the cutlets in a stew-pan.

Stew and serve

Add the brown gravy, claret, fried breadcrumbs, sugar, and white wine vinegar.
Stew slowly in a covered stew-pan.
Pour the strained sauce over the collops before serving.

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.

White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,776 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + white winetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,586 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Venison + white winetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Venison + vinegartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together166 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison: Forms the main meat, which is browned and then stewed until tender.
Fried breadcrumbs: Thicken the sauce and give it body as they soften during stewing.
Claret: Adds acidity and wine flavour that deepens the sauce as it reduces.
Brown gravy: Provides the savoury liquid base that the meat stews in.

The step that matters

Stew slowly in a covered stew-pan. Gentle, covered cooking keeps the liquid from evaporating too fast and lets the lean venison soften gradually. Rapid boiling would toughen the meat and could scorch the sauce.

“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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Venison-Collops, a Scotch Dish