Skip to main content

Mock Venison

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Venison

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Hang the mutton for several days.

  2. Bone the mutton and remove all kidney fat and skin from the upper fat.

  3. Mix brown sugar, black pepper, and allspice; rub this mixture into the mutton.

  4. Cover the mutton with skin and rub it daily for five days.

  5. When ready to roast, wash off the spices, cover with skin, and pepper as for venison.

  6. Roast the mutton for the same time as real venison.

  7. Serve with made gravy and currant jelly.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Mutton + allspicetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sugar, pepper):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipes