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Hash Venison

Hash Venison is a dish of sliced venison simmered in thickened brown gravy with optional carrot, herbs, and served on fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hash Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

  1. Arrange the venison slices in a clean saucepan and pour the gravy over them. Let stand for 10 minutes.

  2. Place the saucepan near the fire and slowly bring to a boil.

  3. Serve immediately in a hot-water dish.

Make the plain stock

  1. For a plain version, boil the bones of the venison with mutton cutlets, carrot, herbs, and water until reduced by one third.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Cool the strained liquid.

  4. Skim off the fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. Heat the gravy and thicken it with arrowroot or brown roux.

  2. Mix in the same sauce and serve on fried bread if desired.

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. Carrot + arrowroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Arrowroot + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Venison + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together116 recipes

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

  5. Venison + carrottop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together169 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Forms the meat of the hash; thin slices soften gently in the warm gravy.
Thickened brown gravy
Supplies moisture, savory flavor and body for the whole dish.
Arrowroot or brown roux
Starch thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a glossy, coating texture.
Water or broth
Provides the liquid base for simmering the plain version's stock.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and aroma to the simmered stock.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with arrowroot or roux. Starch must be fully dispersed in cool liquid before heating, then brought to heat so it swells and thickens. Adding it to hot liquid or stopping too early leaves lumps or a thin sauce.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, carrot, bread. 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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