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To Stew Cold Venison

A stew made from remains of cold venison bones, mutton broth, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and mutton work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 279 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Cold Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Make a gravy with the remains from the bones, mutton broth, and sweet herbs.

  2. Skim the gravy, then add browned butter thickened with flour, catsup, mixed spices, claret, and currant jelly if desired.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil until smooth, stirring well, then add thinly sliced venison.

  2. Heat thoroughly, remove the herbs, and dish it up.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over the dish and garnish with lemon slices and fried snippets or pickles.

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. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  4. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the browned butter into a smooth, body-rich gravy.
Browned butter
Adds a nutty, rich fat flavour to the gravy.
Mutton broth
Forms the savoury liquid base of the gravy.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the sauce.
Catsup
Contributes sweet-sour tang and depth of savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until smooth, stirring well, before adding the venison. Flour must be fully mixed in and cooked through to thicken the gravy without lumps or a raw starchy taste. Stirring keeps it from scorching and sticking to the pan.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, mutton, butter, flour, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, butter, flour, 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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