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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A slow‑cooked venison shoulder wrapped in mutton‑fat and seasoned, simmered in port wine and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and port wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 239 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Let the meat hang until ready to dress it.

  2. Remove the bone.

  3. Beat the meat with a rolling pin.

  4. Lay slices of mutton-fat soaked in port wine on the meat. Sprinkle with pepper and all-spice in fine powder.

  5. Roll the meat tightly and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place in a stew-pan with just enough mutton or beef gravy to cover it. Add ½ cup port wine and some pepper and all-spice.

  2. Simmer covered for 3 to 4 hours until tender.

  3. Remove the tape.

  4. Place the meat on a dish. Strain the gravy over it.

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 + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Port wine + peppertop 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

Shoulder of venison
Is the main cut of meat that becomes tender and flavourful during slow stewing.
Mutton-fat
Adds richness and moisture, basting the lean venison as it cooks.
½ cup port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the meat and the gravy.
Mutton or beef gravy
Supplies liquid that keeps the meat moist and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer covered for 3 to 4 hours until tender. Lean venison is tough, and it needs long, gentle, covered simmering so the connective tissue breaks down. Boiling hard or cooking too briefly leaves the meat dry and chewy.

“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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