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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A stew made by simmering a shoulder of venison with water, salt, pepper, herbs, onions, carrots, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the shoulder of venison in a large pot.

  2. Cover with water and add salt, pepper, and herbs.

  3. Chop onions, carrots, and celery; add to the pot.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours until tender.

  2. Remove the meat, strain the broth, and serve the venison with the broth.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften during cooking.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Venison shoulder is connective-tissue-rich, and it only becomes tender when held at a gentle simmer for a long time. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and make the broth cloudy, so keep the heat low once it reaches a boil.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, thyme, carrot, celery. 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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