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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A venison shoulder is stewed with port wine, gravy, mutton fat, pepper, and allspice.

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 ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Let the venison hang until ready to dress.

  2. Remove the bone and beat the meat with a rolling pin.

  3. Layer soaked and stewed mutton fat on the meat.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and allspice.

  5. Roll the meat tightly and tie it.

Stew

  1. Place in a stew-pan with gravy and port wine.

  2. Simmer covered for 3-4 hours until tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the tape and place the meat on a dish.

  2. Strain the gravy over the meat.

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. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

  3. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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 shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Mutton fat
Adds moisture and richness, basting the lean venison as it cooks.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the stewing liquid, flavouring the gravy.
Gravy
Provides a savoury liquid that keeps the meat moist during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer covered for 3-4 hours until tender. Lean venison is tough and needs long, gentle, covered simmering so collagen breaks down into gelatin. Boiling hard or cooking too briefly leaves the meat dry and chewy.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, mutton, port wine, pepper):

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, port wine, pepper. 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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