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Mock Venison

A mutton loin prepared with brown sugar, black pepper, and port wine, then roasted and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 mutton for several days.

  2. Bone the mutton and remove all kidney fat and skin from the upper fat.

Cure

  1. Mix the brown sugar and ground black pepper, then rub it into the mutton.

  2. Pour the port wine over the mutton.

  3. Cover the mutton with the skin and rub and turn it daily for five days.

Roast and serve

  1. When ready to roast, cover it with the skin and wrap it in paper like venison.

  2. Serve with made gravy and sauces typically used for venison.

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 + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + port winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Mutton
Forms the meat that is aged, cured and roasted to mimic venison.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during roasting.
Ground black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and flavour to the cure rubbed into the meat.
Port wine
Adds acidity and fruity flavour to the meat during the daily turning.

The step that matters

Turning and rubbing the mutton daily for five days. Regular turning spreads the sugar, pepper and wine evenly over the meat, so the cure penetrates consistently instead of leaving dry or unevenly flavoured patches.

“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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