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Scollops of Venison, Etc

Venison cutlets simmered in wine and sauce with vegetables, served with glazed carrots, turnips, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 venison

  1. Fry the venison cutlets until brown, then remove excess grease.

  2. Add red wine, Espagnole sauce, consomme, a carrot, an onion, celery, and a bundle of parsley.

  3. Simmer gently until the cutlets are tender, then transfer them to a sautapan with some sauce to keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the remaining sauce through a sieve into a smaller pot, clarify by boiling and skimming.

  2. Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency, then pass it through a tammy into a bain-marie.

Serve

  1. To serve, plate the cutlets, fill the center with glazed carrots and turnips, and arrange glazed button onions around.

  2. Pour the sauce over the cutlets and 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. Celery + turniptop 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

Venison cutlets
Browning and searing build flavor, while gentle simmering makes the meat tender.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth, helping to flavor the braising liquid and sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Provides a rich, thickened brown sauce base that gives body and savory depth.
Consomme
Adds concentrated meat flavor and moisture to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Reducing and clarifying the sauce. Boiling and skimming removes impurities that would cloud the sauce, and reducing it to the proper consistency concentrates flavor and gives the right body. Overreduction can make it too thick or salty, while underreduction leaves it thin.

Swap the onion

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

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

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