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Mutton Venison

A slow‑cooked mutton stew simmered in port wine and water with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and bone the loin of mutton, removing the suet.

  2. Place it in a cold stewpan with the bones and pour over the wine and water.

  3. Let it sit overnight.

Stew

  1. Place the meat over the fire with the fat side down.

  2. Add the shallot, parsley, marjoram, peppercorns, mace, and lemon peel.

  3. After stewing for about an hour, turn the meat fat side up.

  4. When cooked, remove the bones, skim off the fat, and strain the gravy.

  5. If not brown enough, hold a salamander over it.

  6. Serve with some of the gravy in the dish.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + marjoramtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton loin
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Red port wine
Adds depth, acidity and colour to the gravy as it simmers with the meat.
Shallot
Adds a mild, savoury onion-like sweetness that rounds out the gravy.

The step that matters

Turning the meat fat side up after an hour. Turning the meat lets the fat render and baste the lean meat evenly. Skipping or delaying the turn can leave uneven texture and a greasy top, and the fat must be skimmed off later.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, port wine, shallot, parsley, marjoram, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, port wine, shallot, parsley, marjoram, lemon. 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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