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Wine Sauce for Venison

A sauce made with butter, jelly, brown sugar, allspice, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and port wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,499 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Wine Sauce for Venison

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter, jelly, brown sugar, ground allspice, and port wine.

  2. Stir the mixture over medium heat until it thickens.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Allspice + port winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + port winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Jelly
Provides sweetness and body, and helps the sauce set as it thickens.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel notes that balance the wine.
Port wine
Supplies the main liquid and acidity, and flavour that concentrates as it reduces.

The step that matters

Stir over medium heat until it thickens. Heat must be steady and the mixture stirred so the sugars and jelly do not scorch on the bottom of the pan. Thickening happens as liquid evaporates and the jelly's pectin and sugars set, so stopping too early leaves a thin sauce.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, port wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, port wine. 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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