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To Stew Cold Venison

A stew of cold venison bones, mutton stock, herbs, browned butter, flour, catsup, spices, claret, and optional currant jelly, finished with lemon and garnished.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and mutton work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 279 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Cold Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Make a gravy from the bones of the cold venison.

  2. Add mutton stock and a bundle of fine herbs; skim when good.

  3. Stir in browned butter thickened with flour, catsup, mixed spices, claret, and currant jelly if desired.

  4. Boil until smooth, stirring well, then add thinly sliced venison.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat thoroughly, remove herbs, and squeeze lemon juice into the dish.

  2. Garnish with lemon slices and fried snips or cut pickles.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  4. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Venison
Supplies the meat and, through its bones, the base flavour of the gravy.
Mutton stock
Adds savoury depth and body to the gravy.
Browned butter
Adds a nutty, toasted aroma and richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it becomes smooth and clings to the meat.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the rich gravy.
Lemon
Its juice adds brightness and acidity just before serving.

The step that matters

Boil until smooth, stirring well, then add thinly sliced venison.. Flour thickens only when it is stirred while the liquid heats, so lumps form if it is left still. Stirring keeps the gravy smooth, and adding the thin venison slices after thickening keeps them tender rather than overcooked.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, mutton, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, mutton, butter, flour, lemon. 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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