Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Currant Sauce for Venison
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the currants in water for a few minutes.
Add bread crumbs, cloves, port wine, and butter, then stir until smooth.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together356 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together914 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,499 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Bread + port winetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together321 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried currants
- Soften in boiling water and provide the sweet, fruity base of the sauce.
- Bread crumbs
- Thicken the sauce and give it body as they absorb liquid.
- Port wine
- Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the finished sauce.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, bread, port wine, butter):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Clovethe original
- Allspicefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against currant, bread, port wine, butter. 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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