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To Hash Cold Venison

A hash made from cold venison, trimmings, bones, and gravy, simmered with butter, flour, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Hash Cold Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the cold venison into small slices.

  2. Place the trimmings and bones in a saucepan with enough water to cover them.

  3. Stew for one hour.

  4. Strain the liquid into a stewpan.

Make the hash

  1. Add bits of butter rolled in flour and any leftover gravy.

  2. Stir in some currant jelly.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the sliced meat.

  5. Heat gently without boiling.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Venison + meattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 meat
Forms the main body of the hash and carries its flavour.
Butter and flour
Rolled together and stirred in, they thicken the liquid into a smooth sauce.
Leftover gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a tart edge that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Once the sliced meat goes in, boiling toughens cooked meat proteins and can make them dry and stringy. Gentle heat warms the meat through while keeping it tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, meat, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

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