Skip to main content
Main

Venison in the Blood

Venison cooked in its own blood, seasoned with herbs and suet, then roasted or stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme 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 ↓

Venison in the Blood

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Bone the venison and lay it open in its blood overnight.

  2. Pour off the blood and season the meat with salt and spices.

Make the herb stuffing

  1. In a pan, combine winter savory, sweet marjoram, thyme, and beef suet; cook until thick.

  2. Spread the mixture over the venison and roll it up tightly.

Cook and serve

  1. Roast or stew the venison in gravy with claret and eschalots.

  2. Serve hot with a sauceboat of currant jelly dissolved in boiling water.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Winter savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Winter savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Winter savory + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 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

Venison
Forms the main body of the roast, and its lean meat is what the cook rolls, seasons and cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the lean venison moist and rich.
Claret (red wine)
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy in which the venison is cooked.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity to the serving sauce, balancing the rich meat.
Winter savory, sweet marjoram and thyme
Provide aromatic herbal flavour that permeates the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Rolling and cooking the venison. The meat must be rolled tightly so the herb and suet filling stays inside during cooking. Lean venison dries out easily, so it needs gentle, moist cooking in gravy or stew to stay tender.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, winter savory, marjoram, thyme, beef, red wine, shallot):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, winter savory, marjoram, thyme, beef, red wine, shallot. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes