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To Stew a Shoulder of Venison When Too Lean to Roast

A stew of a lean venison shoulder wrapped in mutton fat and spices, cooked slowly in gravy with claret or port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew a Shoulder of Venison When Too Lean to Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Bone the venison and flatten it.

  2. Lay thin slices of fat mutton over the meat.

  3. Sprinkle with mixed spices and roll it up tightly.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew slowly in a close stew-pan with rich beef or mutton gravy.

  2. Add pepper, cayenne, allspice, and claret or port when nearly finished.

  3. Cook until the venison is tender, about three hours.

  4. Remove the bandages and serve with strained gravy poured over it.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  4. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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 shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Fat mutton
Adds fat that bastes the lean venison and keeps it moist as it cooks.
Rich beef or mutton gravy
Provides liquid for slow stewing and forms the sauce served with the meat.
Claret or port
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the gravy near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Cook until the venison is tender, about three hours.. Venison shoulder is lean and rich in connective tissue, which only softens into tender meat after long, gentle simmering. Stopping early leaves it tough, while a hard boil can dry the outside and toughen the muscle fibres.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, beef, 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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