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Venison Soup

A hearty venison soup made with ham, onion, celery, mace, peppercorns, butter, flour, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Venison Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the venison into pieces and chop the onion and celery.

  2. Place the meat and vegetables in a pot with just enough water to cover them, and cover with a lid.

Make the soup

  1. Stew slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Add 2 quarts of boiling water, mace, and whole peppercorns (or cayenne if preferred).

  3. Boil for an additional 2 hours, then season with salt and strain the soup.

Finish

  1. Return the liquid to the pot, stir in the butter, and thicken with a paste made from the browned flour and cold water.

  2. Add Worcestershire sauce and mix well.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Venison + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 flavour and body as its proteins break down during long simmering.
Ham or salt pork
Adds savoury, salty depth and richness to the broth.
Browned flour
Thickens the strained liquid and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and a smooth finish to the soup.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds sharp, pungent acidity and savoury depth to finish the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly into cold water before adding, so it does not clump. Stirring it into hot liquid as a dry powder causes lumps, while a smooth paste thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, ham, onion, celery, butter, flour, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, ham, onion, celery, butter, flour, sauce. 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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