Skip to main content
Main

Venison, Hashed

Venison hash is a stew of sliced venison, gravy, butter, flour, toasted sippets, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Venison, Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Put the bones and trimmings in a saucepan and add the gravy.

  2. Stew gently for 1 hour, then strain the mixture.

Thicken and prepare the meat

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Dredge the flour into the melted butter to thicken it.

  3. When browned, add the strained gravy, boil, and skim.

  4. Cut the cold roast venison into neat slices.

  5. When cool, add the slices of meat and simmer gently until hot.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted sippets around the dish and red 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Venison + red curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together495 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cold roast venison
Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated in the sauce so it stays tender.
Gravy
Supplies the liquid and savoury flavour that forms the body of the hash.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and carries the flour to form the thickening base.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by forming a roux with the melted butter.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that cut through the rich, savoury meat.

The step that matters

Skim the gravy after boiling. Boiling brings fat and impurities to the surface of the gravy; skimming them off keeps the sauce clear and prevents it tasting greasy.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Currantfits about as well
  3. Red currantthe original
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour. 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.

More venison hash recipes

Cold 4 See all 57 →

You might also like

Roast VenisonRoast Venison20 recipesVenison PastyVenison Pasty7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes