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Tillets of Venison a LA Portugaise

A venison dish marinated in vinegar and spices, larded with bacon, baked, and served with a citrus‑almond sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tillets of Venison a LA Portugaise

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the venison

  1. Skin and trim the deer fillets.

  2. Place the trimmed fillets on a dish.

  3. Fry the chopped vegetables in butter.

  4. Pour enough vinegar to cover the fillets.

  5. Season the vinegar with salt, pepper, cloves, and spices.

  6. Pour the seasoned vinegar over the fillets.

  7. Marinate the fillets for 4 hours.

  8. Drain the fillets.

Bake the fillets

  1. Lard the fillets with bacon.

  2. Place the larded fillets on a buttered baking sheet.

  3. Dredge salt over the fillets.

  4. Cover the fillets with buttered paper.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Finely chop the lemon and orange peels.

  2. Boil the peels in a little water until tender.

  3. Strain the boiled peels.

  4. Boil ½ pint of wine until reduced by half.

  5. Mix in 1 teacup of gravy and the boiled peel.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil again.

  7. Mix 1 tablespoon of potato flour with a small amount of water to form a smooth cream. Stir the cream into the sauce.

  8. Boil the sauce for a few minutes while stirring.

  9. Add 1 teacup of currants, 2 oz. of almonds, the juice of the oranges, and a pinch of cayenne.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 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

Deer fillets
Lean meat that the vinegar marinade tenderises and flavours before baking.
Bacon fillets
Fat threaded through the lean venison keeps it moist during baking.
Vinegar
Acid in the marinade that softens the meat and adds a sharp note.
Potato flour
Starch that thickens the wine and gravy sauce to a smooth consistency.
Sweet almonds
Fat and body that give the sauce richness and a soft texture.
Currants
Plump fruit that adds sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar and citrus.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding the potato flour cream. Starch must be boiled while stirring to swell and thicken fully; stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (deer, butter, onion, turnip, vinegar, pepper, clove):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against deer, butter, onion, turnip, vinegar, pepper, clove. 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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