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Stewed Venison

A stew of venison cooked with stock, claret, sugar, cinnamon, herbs, and plums.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Brown the venison thoroughly in butter.

  2. Place the venison in a cooking pot with stock, claret, sugar, cinnamon, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cook for 1 hour.

  4. Add the soaked plums, cover, and cook for 2 more hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat, arrange the plums around it on a dish.

  2. Strain the sauce, pour it over the meat, and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cinnamon + plumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cinnamon + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + plumtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Haunch of venison
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender during long, slow cooking.
Butter
Fat that browns the meat surface, adding rich, savory flavor before the liquid goes in.
Clear stock
Liquid base that gently cooks the meat and forms the body of the sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor that balances the richness of the meat and sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the wine and the plums.
French plums
Soften during cooking and add fruity sweetness and tartness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the venison thoroughly in butter. Browning creates deep, savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Meat that is pale or steamed at this stage gives a flatter sauce, so it needs room and enough heat to brown well.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, butter, sugar, cinnamon, pepper, plum):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, sugar, cinnamon, pepper, plum. 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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