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Sauce

The Old Currant Sauce for Venison

A sauce made from dried currants, bread crumbs, cloves, port wine, and butter, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The Old Currant Sauce for Venison

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the dried currants in water for a few minutes.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, cloves, port wine, and butter.

  3. Stir until the mixture is smooth.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Bread + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together321 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried currants
Provide sweetness and fruity flavour that gives the sauce its character.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the sauce and give it a smooth, body-rich texture as they absorb liquid.
Port wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour, balancing the sweetness of the currants.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a glossy finish to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture is smooth. Bread crumbs keep absorbing liquid as they sit, so the sauce can thicken unevenly or form lumps if not stirred well. Continued stirring breaks up the crumbs and distributes starch evenly for a smooth, uniform texture.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, bread, port wine, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, bread, port wine, butter. 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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