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To Boil Venison Steaks

A method for boiling and broiling venison steaks with suet, butter, and a currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Boil Venison Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grill

  1. Preheat the gridiron until hot.

  2. Rub the bars with a bit of suet.

  3. Dip the venison steaks in crushed crackers or wheat flour.

Broil the steaks

  1. Place the steaks on the gridiron over a bright, clear fire of coals.

  2. When one side is done, transfer the steak to a dish to catch the blood.

  3. Turn the steaks on the gridiron and let them broil nicely.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Heat a steak dish.

  2. Add butter the size of an egg for each pound of venison.

  3. Season with ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of currant jelly mixed with 1 tablespoon of hot water or wine.

  5. Lay the steaks on the dish, turning them in the gravy, and serve hot.

  6. Alternatively, broil the steaks simply and serve with butter, pepper, and salt.

  7. Place thin lemon slices over the broiled steaks.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison steaks
Main protein that is broiled and served as the centerpiece of the dish.
Suet
Fat rubbed on the grill bars to keep the steaks from sticking and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy that coats the finished steaks.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the rich venison and gravy.

The step that matters

Transfer the steak when one side is done. Moving the steak at the right moment, once a side has set and browned, lets it release from the grill cleanly and keeps it from tearing or drying out while the other side cooks.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, butter, 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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