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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A stew made by tenderizing a shoulder of venison with mutton fat, port wine, and spices, served with gravy and currant jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Hang the meat until ready to dress.

  2. Remove the bone and beat the meat with a rolling pin.

  3. Lay slices of mutton fat that have soaked in port wine on the meat.

  4. Sprinkle pepper and allspice over the meat.

  5. Roll the meat tightly and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place it in a stew pan with the gravy and port wine.

  2. Simmer covered on low heat for 3 to 4 hours until tender.

  3. Remove the meat and place it on a dish.

  4. Strain the gravy over the meat and serve with currant jelly sauce.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender through long, slow simmering.
Mutton fat
Adds moisture and richness as it melts into the lean venison during cooking.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps tenderise the meat when soaked and simmered.
Mutton or beef gravy
Provides liquid for slow simmering and forms the base of the sauce.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour that complements the rich meat.

The step that matters

Simmer covered on low heat. Venison is lean and dense, so it needs long, gentle simmering with low heat to break down connective tissue. Fast boiling toughens the meat and dries out the surface, so keep the heat low and the pot covered.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, mutton, port wine, pepper, allspice, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, port wine, pepper, allspice, sauce. 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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