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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

A venison shoulder stew simmered with cloves, mutton gravy, and port wine, served with French beans and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Flatten the venison with a rolling pin.

  2. Season the flattened venison with pepper and allspice.

  3. Skewer the meat to maintain its shoulder shape.

Stew the venison

  1. Place the bones in a stewpan.

  2. Add the venison on top of the bones.

  3. Add the cloves, mutton gravy, and port wine.

  4. Stew until the meat is tender.

  5. Remove the meat from the stewpan.

  6. Keep the meat warm on a dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  2. Add browning and salt to taste.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Remove excess fat from the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the venison in a deep dish.

  2. Pour the hot gravy over the venison.

  3. Garnish the dish with French beans.

  4. Serve currant jelly 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 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
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews slowly in liquid.
Mutton gravy
Provides the savoury liquid base that cooks the meat and becomes the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and a rich colour to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and clings to the plate.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew until the meat is tender. Venison shoulder is lean and full of connective tissue. Slow, gentle simmering breaks that tissue down, so the meat turns tender. Rapid boiling toughens and dries it.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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