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A Hash of Cold Venison

A hash of cold venison made with a peppered venison broth, butter‑flour gravy, port wine, currant jelly, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Hash of Cold Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Cut the cold venison into thin slices.

  2. Stew the bones and trimmings with whole grains of pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour.

Finish and serve

  1. When hot, add port wine and currant jelly.

  2. Add the slices of venison and simmer slowly for a few minutes.

  3. Serve with toasted bread around the dish.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy, balancing the savory meat.
Port wine
Adds depth and acidity to the gravy, deepening its flavor.
Venison
Provides the main meat, which gently warms through in the gravy.

The step that matters

Add the slices of venison and simmer slowly for a few minutes. Venison is already cooked, so prolonged or vigorous boiling would toughen and dry the slices. A gentle simmer just heats them through while keeping them tender.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Red currantfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, butter, flour, port wine, bread. 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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