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Venison Epicurean

Venison steak cooked in butter, sherry, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and currant work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Venison Epicurean

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut a steak from the leg or a chop from the loin of venison.

Cook

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter with salt and pepper over a spirit lamp.

  2. Add the venison and cook for a few minutes on one side.

  3. Turn the meat over and add the sherry and currant jelly.

  4. Simmer gently for 7 minutes for rare or 12 minutes for well done.

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. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the lean, rich meat that is the main component of the dish.
Butter
Carries heat evenly across the meat and adds richness and a browned flavour.
Sherry or port
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the pan liquid as it simmers.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce, balancing the acidity of the wine.

The step that matters

Simmering time for doneness. Venison is very lean, so overcooking dries it out quickly. Simmering gently keeps the meat tender and juicy, and the difference between rare and well done is only a few minutes.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, pepper, sherry. 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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