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Scollops of Venison, Etc

Venison cutlets simmered in a clarified red wine and Espagnole sauce with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Scollops of Venison, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the cutlets

  1. Brown the cutlets in a sauté pan.

  2. Remove excess grease from the pan.

  3. Add red wine, Espagnole sauce, consomme, carrot, onion, celery, and parsley.

  4. Simmer gently until the cutlets are tender.

  5. Remove the cutlets to a sauté pan with a little sauce to keep warm.

Finish the sauce

  1. Strain the remaining sauce through a sieve into a smaller pan.

  2. Boil the sauce gently.

  3. Skim off impurities from the sauce.

  4. Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency.

  5. Keep the sauce warm.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets with glazed carrots and turnips in the center, and small glazed button onions around.

  2. Pour the sauce over the cutlets.

  3. Serve.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cutlets of venison
The main protein, which becomes tender through slow simmering in the sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour, and helps build the body of the sauce as it reduces.
Espagnole sauce
A brown sauce base that gives the dish its body, richness and glossy texture.
Consomme
A clear stock that adds savoury meatiness and liquid for the braise.
Vegetables (carrots, turnips, onions, celery)
Their sugars and aromatic compounds flavour the braising liquid and sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce by evaporating water. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while reducing too far makes it overly salty and sticky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, carrot, turnip, celery, red wine, sauce, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, carrot, turnip, celery, red wine, sauce, parsley. 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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