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Sweet Sauce for Venison or Hare

A sweet sauce made with white wine vinegar, powdered sugar, and currant jelly, suitable for venison or hare.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,776 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sweet Sauce for Venison or Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sweet sauce

  1. Combine the white wine vinegar and powdered sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat gently, allowing it to simmer while skimming off any foam.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a serving bowl.

Serve with currant jelly

  1. Melt the currant jelly in a saucepan.

  2. Pour the melted currant jelly into a sauceboat.

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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. White wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

White wine vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Powdered loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves readily into the hot vinegar.
Currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and body when melted into the sauce.

The step that matters

Skimming off foam while simmering. Foam rises as the sugar and vinegar heat and can cloud the sauce or leave bitter impurities. Skimming keeps the sauce clear and smooth before straining.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, sugar. 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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