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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

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

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 venison

  1. Let the venison hang until ready to dress.

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

  3. Layer mutton fat soaked in port wine among the meat, sprinkle with pepper and allspice, then roll the meat tightly and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place in a stew pan with enough mutton or beef gravy to cover.

  2. Add 1 pint of port wine and more pepper and allspice.

  3. Simmer covered for 3 to 4 hours until tender.

  4. Remove the tape and place the meat 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

Shoulder of venison
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, moist simmering.
Mutton fat
Adds richness and moisture, basting the lean venison as it cooks.
Port wine
Adds depth and a touch of sweetness to the flavor of the meat and gravy.
Mutton or beef gravy
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the meat moist and forms the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweet-tart acidity that balances the rich, gamey meat and gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer covered for 3 to 4 hours until tender. Venison shoulder is connective-tissue-rich and lean; it needs a gentle, covered simmer in liquid so collagen slowly breaks down. Boiling hard or cooking too briefly leaves the meat tough and dry.

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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