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Mock Venison

A mutton roast marinated 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) · 6 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

  1. Hang the loin of 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 spice mixture well into the mutton and let it marinate 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. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 loin
Provides the lean meat that is roasted and served as the main dish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during roasting.
Black pepper
Adds pungent aroma and heat to the marinated surface of the meat.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that penetrates the meat during marinating.
Currant jelly
Adds tart sweetness that balances the rich, fatty meat.

The step that matters

Marinating the mutton in the spice rub. The spice mixture must be rubbed in thoroughly and turned daily over five days so the seasoning penetrates evenly. Uneven rubbing leaves some areas bland and others overly sweet or sharp.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, 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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