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Sauce

Venison-sauce

A sauce made from currant jelly, butter, brown sugar, mace, allspice, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,189 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Venison-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine currant jelly, butter, brown sugar, ground mace, allspice, and wine.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

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. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Currant jelly
Provides sweetness and fruity body, and helps the sauce set as it cools.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy, smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deepens the color and caramel notes of the sauce.
Wine
Contributes acidity and liquid, and concentrates in flavor as the sauce reduces.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugars and pectin from the jelly, so the sauce thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it sticky and overly sweet as it cools.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, butter, sugar, allspice, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, butter, sugar, allspice, 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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