Name: Venison Steaks
Ingredients: venison steaks; pepper; coarse sea salt; currant jelly

Why it works: Venison and currant work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 443 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Venison Steaks

Ingredients

venison steaks
pepper
coarse sea salt
currant jelly

Directions

Cut venison steaks from the neck.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Heat a grill until hot and grease the bars.
Broil the steaks well, turning once and saving as much gravy as possible.
Serve hot with currant jelly on each piece.

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.

Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together443 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together955 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,345 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).