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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A stew made from a shoulder of venison simmered with port wine, gravy, pepper, allspice, and mutton‑fat slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Let the meat hang until it is sweet.

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

  3. Soak slices of mutton-fat in port wine for a few hours.

  4. Sprinkle pepper and allspice over the meat in fine powder.

  5. Roll the meat tightly and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Place it in a stew pan with gravy or broth, port wine, pepper, and allspice.

  2. Cover and simmer on low heat for 3 to 4 hours until tender.

  3. Remove the tape.

  4. Place the meat on a dish.

  5. Strain the gravy over it.

  6. Serve with currant jelly.

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

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

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

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

  4. Port wine + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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 and becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Mutton-fat slices
Soaked in port and laid over the meat, adding moisture and richness as it melts.
Port wine
Soaks into the fat and adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Gravy or broth
Provides liquid for slow simmering, keeping the meat moist and building the sauce.

The step that matters

Cover and simmer on low heat for 3 to 4 hours until tender. Venison shoulder is lean and tough; slow, gentle heat breaks down connective tissue into gelatin. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and dries the meat.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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