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Stewed Venison

A slow‑cooked venison shoulder wrapped in mutton fat, simmered in port wine and broth, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Bone and beat the shoulder of venison to make it tender.

  2. Soak slices of mutton fat in port wine for a few hours.

  3. Lay the soaked mutton fat on the underside of the shoulder.

  4. Sprinkle pepper and allspice on the mutton fat.

  5. Roll up the shoulder with the mutton fat inside and tie it tightly.

Stew and serve

  1. Place it in a small stew-pan and cover with weak broth and ½ cup of port wine.

  2. Cover closely and simmer slowly for four hours.

  3. When done, open it and lay the meat flat on a dish.

  4. Strain the gravy over the meat and serve with currant jelly sauce.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through beating and long slow simmering.
Mutton fat
Adds moisture and richness as it melts into the meat during the long simmer.
Port wine
Soaks the fat and adds sweetness and depth to the braising liquid and gravy.
Weak mutton or beef broth
Provides the braising liquid that keeps the meat moist and forms the gravy.
Allspice
Adds warm aroma to the meat as it cooks inside the rolled shoulder.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and keep the pot covered. Venison is lean, and tough connective tissue only softens into tenderness with long, gentle heat. Boiling hard or lifting the lid lets the liquid evaporate and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, port wine, pepper. 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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