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Stewed Venison

Stewed venison is a dish of rolled venison steaks stuffed with breadcrumbs, onion, parsley, pork, simmered in stock, finished with sherry or port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Cut the venison into steaks.

  2. Spread a thin layer of stuffing made with bread crumbs, minced onion, parsley, pepper, salt, and chopped pork over each steak.

  3. Roll each steak separately and tie them with a cord.

Stew and finish the gravy

  1. Stew the rolled steaks in boiling water or stock.

  2. Thicken the gravy with a mixture of flour and butter.

  3. Add 1-2 tablespoons of sherry or port wine to the gravy.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison steaks
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist inside the rolled steaks.
Flour
Thickens the gravy together with butter as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to thicken the gravy.
Chopped pork
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and flavourful during cooking.

The step that matters

Stew the rolled steaks in boiling water or stock. Venison is lean and can toughen if cooked too hard. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer over a long stew lets connective tissue soften slowly while the meat stays tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, bread, parsley, pepper, pork, flour, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, bread, parsley, pepper, pork, flour, butter. 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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