Skip to main content
Main

Venison, Hashed

A stew of sliced venison simmered in gravy, served with French beans and optional red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Venison, Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine venison bones, trimmings, sliced onion, pepper, salt, and enough stock or water to cover.

  2. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the gravy and thicken it with a small piece of brown thickening or 1½ ounces of butter rolled in flour.

  4. Clear the gravy of grease.

Prepare the venison

  1. Cut cold roast venison into thin slices, about ⅓ inch thick, without removing the fat.

  2. Season the venison slices with pepper and flour.

Warm and serve

  1. Place the seasoned slices in a clean saucepan and pour over enough gravy to moisten but not cover.

  2. Heat gently, shaking the saucepan frequently.

  3. Do not let the gravy boil after adding the venison.

  4. Serve the venison on a hot dish, pouring the gravy over it.

  5. Accompany with boiled French beans and red currant jelly if desired.

Richer gravy option

  1. For a richer gravy, sauté bones and trimmings with butter, add carrot, shallot, clove, bay leaf, and seasonings.

  2. Cover with water and simmer for 3 hours.

  3. Strain, thicken lightly, add a glass of port, and serve.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast venison
Forms the main body of the dish; slicing it thin and gently rewarming keeps it tender.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and, rolled in flour, thickens it with a rich, smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and lightly coats the venison slices so they hold moisture.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stock used for the gravy.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that contrast with the rich, meaty gravy.

The step that matters

Do not let the gravy boil after adding the venison. Boiling toughens cooked meat proteins and dries the slices, so the venison should be gently heated while the gravy stays below a simmer.

Swap the red currant

The recipe marks red currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, onion, pepper, butter, flour, carrot, shallot):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, onion, pepper, butter, flour, carrot, shallot. 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.

More venison hash recipes

Cold 4 See all 57 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesRoast VenisonRoast Venison20 recipesVenison PastyVenison Pasty7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes