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To Hash Venison

A venison hash simmered with port wine, browning sauce, ketchup, and onion, served over toast with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Hash Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the venison thinly.

Make the hash

  1. In a stewpan, combine the venison, port wine, browning sauce, ketchup, and onion.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the venison and heat thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Arrange slices of toast in a soup dish.

  2. Pour the hash over the toast and serve with 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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the main meat, which is cooked through in the hash.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the braising liquid.
Browning sauce
Adds colour and a savoury, caramelised flavour to the hash.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich meat.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury flavour as it simmers with the meat.

The step that matters

Heat the venison thoroughly after adding it. Sliced venison is lean and cooks quickly, so it turns dry and tough if overheated. Heating it just until hot through keeps it tender while making sure it is cooked safely.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, port wine, sauce, ketchup, onion, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, port wine, sauce, ketchup, onion, clove. 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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