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Mock Hashed Venison

A hash of sliced mutton cooked with currant jelly, herbs, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Hashed Venison

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the stew-pan from the fire.

  2. Add the sliced mutton and let it simmer gently for 30 minutes. Avoid boiling to keep the mutton tender.

  3. If desired, substitute pickled walnut with currant jelly and add the bouquet of herbs.

  4. Season with additional spices and wine to taste.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Thyme + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
The main meat, which becomes tender when simmered gently over a long period.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tartness that balances the rich meat and sauce.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil. At a rolling boil, the meat's muscle fibres tighten and toughen and the surface churns. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, leaving the mutton tender.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, thyme, basil, marjoram, wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, thyme, basil, marjoram, wine. 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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