Name: Sauce for Venison or Hare
Ingredients: ½ cup claret or port wine; ½ cup mutton gravy; 2 teaspoons currant jelly

Why it works: Port wine and currant work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sauce for Venison or Hare

Ingredients

½ cup claret or port wine
½ cup mutton gravy
2 teaspoons currant jelly

Directions

Combine the claret or port wine, mutton gravy, and currant jelly in a saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.
Serve in a sauceboat or with additional red currant jelly dissolved in port wine or claret.

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.

Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together356 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Port wine + muttontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together344 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Mutton + curranttop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together393 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

Claret or port wine: Adds acidity and fruity depth that balances the rich gravy.
Mutton gravy: Provides the savoury meaty base and body of the sauce.
Currant jelly: Adds sweetness and a tart fruit note that offsets the richness.