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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A slow‑cooked venison shoulder stewed with spices, mutton fat, and stock, served with Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 venison

  1. Bone the shoulder of venison and flatten it on a table.

  2. Season it well with cayenne, salt, pounded mace, and a small amount of allspice.

  3. Lay thin slices of mutton fat over the seasoned venison.

  4. Roll and bind the venison tightly.

Stew and serve

  1. Place it in a vessel nearly its size and pour in enough stock to nearly cover it.

  2. Stew slowly for 3 to 3.5 hours, turning it halfway through.

  3. Serve with a good Espagnole sauce made from the stewing gravy or thicken the gravy with rice flour and wine.

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. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

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

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

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 cooking.
Mutton fat
Bastes the lean venison with fat as it stews, keeping the meat moist and flavourful.
Stock
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the venison and forms the base of the gravy.
Rice flour
Thickens the stewing gravy so it clings to the meat when used instead of Espagnole sauce.
Claret or port wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy when used to thin or thicken the sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing slowly and turning the meat. Lean venison is tough, so it needs long, gentle simmering to break down connective tissue. Keeping the liquid at a low simmer prevents the meat from toughening, and turning it halfway helps it cook evenly in the stock.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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