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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A slow‑cooked venison shoulder wrapped in port‑soaked fat, seasoned with pepper and allspice, served with gravy and currant‑jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 meat hang until ready to dress it.

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

  3. Layer slices of mutton fat soaked in port wine among the meat.

  4. Sprinkle pepper and allspice over the meat in fine powder.

  5. Roll the meat tightly and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place it in a stew-pan that just holds it.

  2. Add some mutton or beef gravy, ½ pint of port wine, and more pepper and allspice.

  3. Simmer covered on low heat for three to four hours until tender.

  4. Remove the tape, place the meat on a dish, and strain the gravy over it.

  5. Serve with currant-jelly sauce.

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
Slow simmering in liquid breaks down its connective tissue, leaving the meat tender.
Mutton fat
Adds moisture and richness as it melts into the meat during the long stew.
Port wine
Adds moisture and a sweet, fruity depth to the gravy as it reduces.
Mutton or beef gravy
Supplies savoury body and moisture to the cooking liquid, forming the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering on low heat. Keeping the heat low and the pot covered holds the liquid at a gentle simmer, so collagen in the shoulder softens slowly without the meat toughening or drying out. A rapid boil would tighten the fibres and reduce the liquid too quickly.

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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