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Sauce

Old Sauce for Venison

A thickened port wine sauce with sugar, cinnamon, and bread crumbs, used for venison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Old Sauce for Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine port wine, pounded sugar, and cinnamon in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer for a considerable time until it resembles jelly, but do not let it boil.

  3. Once it thickens, remove the cinnamon stick.

Thicken and finish

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Add the bread crumbs.

  3. Boil together for a few minutes until it thickens.

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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Port wine + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together321 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Port wine + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cinnamon + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Port wine
Forms the liquid base and dissolves the sugar, giving the sauce its fruity, rich flavour.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and, once reduced, gives the sauce body and a glossy, jelly-like texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid as they cook, thickening the sauce and giving it a fuller texture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the sauce while it simmers, then is removed before serving.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Keeping the port and sugar at a gentle simmer lets the sugar dissolve and the liquid reduce slowly into a syrup. A hard boil too early can scorch the sugar at the base of the pan and cause uneven thickening.

“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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