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To Dress the Umbles of Deer

Umbles are the edible offal of a deer, here kidney and skirt, cooked with gravy, stuffing and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Deer and onion work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 16 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Take the kidney and fat from the heart of the deer.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Fry them, then simmer in good gravy until tender.

  4. Squeeze in a little lemon juice.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the skirts with a mixture of venison fat, bacon fat, grated bread, pepper, mace, sage, and finely chopped onion mixed with the egg yolk.

  2. Tie the stuffed skirts to a spit and lard with thyme and lemon peel.

  3. Roast until done, then serve the skirts in the middle of the dish with the fricassee around it.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Deer + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidney of deer
Forms the tender, rich base of the fricassee that is simmered in gravy.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Grated bread
Adds bulk to the stuffing and soaks up fat and juices for moistness.
Bacon fat
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and savoury during roasting.
Fat from venison
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and fricassee.
Skirt of deer
Serves as the casing that holds the stuffing while it roasts.

The step that matters

Simmering the fricassee until tender. Kidney is tough if cooked too hard or too briefly. Gentle simmering in gravy lets connective tissue soften and keeps the meat moist, so it is tender when served.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (deer, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, venison, bread, sage):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against deer, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, venison, bread, sage. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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