Skip to main content
Main

A Shoulder of Venison Stewed

A stew of venison shoulder, fat, port wine, beef gravy, and spices, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

A Shoulder of Venison Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Bone the venison shoulder and cover it with slices of mutton fat, optionally steeped in port for flavor.

  2. Roll it up tightly and bind it.

Stew and finish

  1. Place it in a stewpan with beef gravy and the venison bones.

  2. Add port wine, whole pepper, and allspice.

  3. Cover and simmer until the venison is tender.

  4. Remove the venison and discard the fat.

  5. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, then strain it over the meat.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Mutton fat
Wraps the meat, adding richness and moisture as it melts during cooking.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the gravy and helps flavor the meat.
Beef gravy
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens the meat and becomes the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running thin.
Butter
Combines with flour to make a roux that thickens and enriches the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Venison shoulder is lean and rich in connective tissue. Gentle, covered simmering breaks that tissue down slowly; boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and dries the meat.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, port wine, beef, pepper, flour, butter. 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.

More venison stew recipes

Cold 7 See all 73 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes