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Venison Steak

Venison steak cooked in butter, currant jelly, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sherry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Venison Steak

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a chafing dish, mix the butter and currant jelly until melted.

  2. Season the venison steak with salt and pepper, then add it to the melted mixture.

  3. Turn the steak several times until fully cooked.

  4. Pour the sherry over the steak, cover closely, and let it sit for 2 minutes.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison steak
Is the main protein, cooked quickly in the butter and jelly mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the steak brown in the pan.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity tartness, and thickens the sauce as it melts into the butter.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma, deglazing the pan and flavoring the sauce.

The step that matters

Turning the steak until fully cooked. Thin venison cooks very quickly and dries out or toughens if overcooked, so it should be turned often and checked for doneness rather than left unattended.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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