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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A venison shoulder stewed with mutton fat, port wine, and gravy, served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Hang the meat until ready to dress.

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

  3. Lay slices of mutton fat that have 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 mutton or beef gravy, ½ cup port wine, pepper, and allspice.

  3. Simmer covered on low heat for 3 to 4 hours until tender.

  4. Remove the meat and place it on a dish.

  5. Strain the gravy over the meat and serve with 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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

  5. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 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 stew, becoming tender through long, slow simmering.
Mutton fat
Adds richness and moisture, basting the lean meat as it cooks.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the meat and gravy.
Mutton or beef gravy
Provides liquid for gentle braising, keeping the meat moist and building the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer covered on low heat. Lean venison is tough and needs long, gentle heat so collagen softens into gelatin. Boiling or high heat toughens the meat and dries the gravy, so keep it at a bare simmer with the lid on.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Limefits about as well

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