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Mock Venison

A slow‑cooked mutton leg marinated in pyroligneous acid and seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Hang the leg of mutton in a cool place for several days until it is just about to spoil.

  2. Place the mutton on a dish.

  3. Pour ½ cup of pyroligneous acid over the mutton and rub the acid into the mutton.

  4. Let the mutton sit for 10 minutes.

  5. Wash the mutton thoroughly.

  6. Cut off the knuckle of the mutton.

  7. Trim away any offensive parts of the mutton.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mutton in a close‑fitting stewpot or thick iron saucepan with no additional liquid.

  2. Simmer the mutton over low heat for 4.5 to 5 hours, turning it several times for even cooking.

  3. Season the mutton with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. If the gravy reduces too much, add 2 tablespoons of boiling water or mutton gravy.

  5. Serve the meat in its own juices with currant jelly or sharp venison sauce on the side.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + curranttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Long cool hanging and simmering in its own juices make the meat tender and rich in flavour.
Pyroligneous acid
Its acidity sharpens the flavour of the meat and helps tenderise its surface.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with no added liquid. Cooking over low heat for several hours without added liquid lets connective tissue break down gradually while the meat releases its own juices. Too much heat can dry or toughen the meat, and turning it helps the cooking stay even.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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