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Sweet Sauce for Roast Mutton, or Venison

A sweet sauce made with Port wine, vinegar, cullis, sugar, pureed onion, and cinnamon for roast mutton or venison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Sweet Sauce for Roast Mutton, or Venison

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the Port wine, vinegar, cullis, and sugar.

  2. Add the pureed onion and ground cinnamon.

  3. Heat the mixture until it boils just before serving.

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 + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Onion + cinnamontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,150 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
Adds fruity sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the sweetness.
Cullis
Provides meaty body and savoury flavour as the sauce base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the vinegar and wine.
Onion
Thickens the sauce slightly and adds savoury sweetness when pureed.

The step that matters

Heating until it just boils. Boiling for too long concentrates the sugar and reduces the wine, which can make the sauce overly sticky or sharp. Heating only until it boils keeps the flavours bright and balanced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, vinegar, meat, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, vinegar, meat, sugar, cinnamon. 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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