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Mock Venison

A seasoned mutton roast flavored with brown sugar, black pepper, and allspice, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Mock Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Hang the mutton for several days.

  2. Bone the mutton and remove all kidney fat and skin from the upper fat.

  3. Mix brown sugar, black pepper, and allspice together.

  4. Rub the mixture into the mutton and let it sit for five days, turning and rubbing daily.

Roast and serve

  1. When ready to roast, wash off the spices.

  2. Serve with made gravy and 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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Mutton + allspicetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Fat mutton
Provides the main meat and rich fat that gives the dish its body and flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during roasting.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and heat that flavors the meat through the cure.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that gives the meat its venison-like character.

The step that matters

Rubbing the spice mixture in and turning it daily. Spices and sugar only penetrate the meat slowly, so regular turning and rubbing spreads the seasoning evenly over the surface during the five days of resting.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sugar, pepper):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, 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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