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Venison Hashed

A stew of venison and gravy thickened with butter and flour, sweetened with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Venison Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the trimmings and bones in a saucepan and cover with water.

  2. Stew for 1 hour, then strain the liquid into a stewpan.

Finish the hash

  1. Roll butter in flour and add to the strained liquid along with leftover gravy.

  2. Stir in currant jelly and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the sliced venison and warm through without boiling.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Venison + meattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
The main meat; gentle warming keeps the thin slices tender and moist.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats with the butter.
Leftover gravy
Adds savoury depth and body to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a tart fruity note that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Warm the venison without boiling. Boiling tightens the proteins in thin meat slices, making them tough and dry. Holding the sauce just below a boil warms the meat gently so it stays tender.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, meat, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, meat, butter, flour. 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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