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A Hash of Cold Venison

A hash of cold venison made with a peppercorn and sea salt gravy thickened with butter and flour, finished with port wine and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Hash of Cold Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Cut the cold venison into thin slices.

  2. Stew the bones and trimmings with whole peppercorns and coarse sea salt to make a gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour.

  4. Once hot, add port wine and currant jelly.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the venison slices and simmer slowly for a few minutes.

  2. Serve with toasted bread around the dish.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated in the sauce.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw starchy taste. Adding it to hot liquid gradually helps it disperse evenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, port wine, bread. 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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