Name: Currant Sauce for Venison
Ingredients: 1 ounce dried currants; ½ cup hot water; 2 heaping tablespoons bread crumbs; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 6 whole cloves; 1 glass port wine

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Currant Sauce for Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pick over the dried currants and wash them well.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine the currants and hot water; boil for 15 minutes.
Add bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and cloves; boil gently.
Just before serving, stir in the port wine.

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.

Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together356 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together914 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,499 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried currants: Provide the main fruit flavor and sweetness as they soften and release their juices in the hot water.
Bread crumbs: Thicken the sauce and give it body as they absorb liquid while boiling.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Port wine: Adds depth, sweetness and aroma when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the port wine just before serving. Alcohol and its aromatic compounds evaporate during prolonged boiling, so stirring the port in at the end preserves its flavor and aroma.

Swap the currant

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

Figfits better
Plumfits better
Applefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, clove, 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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Currant Sauce for Venison