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Mock Venison

A mutton roast marinated in port wine, coated with a flour and dripping paste, baked and glazed, served with gravy and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Mock Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove all kidney fat from the mutton and trim part of the flank.

  2. Skin the mutton.

  3. Either bone or notch the mutton.

  4. Mix sugar and black pepper. Rub the mixture into the mutton.

  5. Moisten the mutton with port wine.

  6. Cover the mutton with the skin.

  7. Let the mutton marinate for 4 days.

Encase and bake

  1. Make a paste with flour, dripping, and boiling water.

  2. Roll the paste out to cover the mutton.

  3. Remove the skin from the mutton.

  4. Place the mutton in the paste.

  5. Cover the mutton with strong buttered paper. Tie it securely.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for at least 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the paste.

  2. Glaze the mutton.

  3. Serve with rich gravy and melted red 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of mutton
Provides the lean meat that is shaped, marinated and roasted as the venison stand-in.
Flour
Forms the stiff paste that encloses the meat and keeps it moist during baking.
Dripping
Adds fat to the paste, enriching its flavour and helping it brown.
Port wine
Moistens the meat and adds sweetness and depth of flavour during marinating.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface of the meat brown.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste crust before baking. The flour-and-dripping paste must fully enclose the mutton and be tied with buttered paper so the meat steams in its own juices rather than drying out during the long bake.

“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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