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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A slow‑cooked venison shoulder braised with port wine, mutton fat, pepper, allspice, and gravy, served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Let the venison hang until ready to dress it.

  2. Remove the bone and beat the meat with a rolling pin.

  3. Lay slices of mutton fat soaked in port wine among the meat.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and allspice, then roll it up tightly and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place in a stew-pan that just holds it, with half a pint of port wine and some gravy.

  2. Cover and simmer slowly for three to four hours until tender.

  3. Remove the tape, place the meat on a dish, and strain the gravy over it.

  4. Serve with currant jelly sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  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

Shoulder of venison
Is the main meat, which becomes tender through long slow simmering in liquid.
Mutton fat
Adds richness and moisture, basting the lean venison as it cooks.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the meat and the gravy.
Mutton or beef gravy
Supplies liquid and savoury body, keeping the meat moist during the long stew.
Currant jelly
Adds sweet-tart fruitiness that balances the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for three to four hours. Gentle, low heat slowly breaks down the tough connective tissue in shoulder meat. Boiling fast tightens the muscle fibres and leaves the meat dry and chewy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, port wine, pepper, allspice. 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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