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Sauce

Venison Sauce

A sauce made from venison trimmings, water, cloves, currant jelly, claret, butter‑flour mixture, cinnamon or mace, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Venison Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the venison trimmings in water with whole cloves until reduced to 2 cups.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add currant jelly, claret, and the butter‑flour mixture.

  4. Stir in ground cinnamon or mace, black pepper, and salt to taste.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison trimmings
Gives the sauce its meaty, savoury base as they simmer down.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the savoury meat flavour.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that deepens the sauce.
Butter and flour mixture
Thickens the sauce and adds richness through fat and starch.

The step that matters

Adding the butter‑flour mixture. Flour needs to be fully incorporated and the sauce kept at a gentle heat so it thickens smoothly without lumps or scorching. Whisking the mixture in gradually helps the starch hydrate evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, clove, red wine, butter, flour, cinnamon, pepper):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, clove, red wine, butter, flour, cinnamon, 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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