Name: Shoulder of Venison Larded
Ingredients: 1 shoulder of venison; forcemeat (prepared according to any recipe); lardoons (strips of fat); buttered paper; coarse sea salt; cayenne pepper; currant jelly or sauce for serving

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 ↓

Shoulder of Venison Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Bone and stuff the shoulder of venison with forcemeat.
Lard the venison with lardoons.
Roast or bake the venison, protecting the lardoons with several layers of buttered paper.
Baste the meat while cooking, avoiding the larded part to keep it firm.
When nearly done, season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.
Remove the buttered paper and brown the lardoons.
Remove the strings used to confine the stuffing and serve hot with currant jelly or sauce.

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).