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Venison Steaks

Venison steaks grilled and served with a butter, currant jelly, and wine glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Venison Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the venison

  1. Preheat a grill or broiler over medium heat.

  2. Place the venison steaks on the grill and cook one side until done.

  3. Carefully transfer the steaks to a hot dish to catch the juices.

  4. Turn the steaks and let them broil nicely on the other side.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix the butter, salt, pepper, currant jelly, and hot water or wine.

  2. Lay the steaks on the dish and turn them in the gravy to coat.

  3. Serve hot, optionally garnished with thin slices of lemon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Venison steaks
The meat itself; cooked over direct heat, it is the main dish and sets the flavour base.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour into the gravy and coating the steaks.
Currant jelly
Supplies sweetness and fruity acidity that balance the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Cooking the first side until done. Venison is very lean, so it dries out and toughens quickly once overcooked. Watching the heat and removing the steaks promptly keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Red currantfits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Grapefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, pepper, currant, wine. 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.

More venison steaks recipes

Broiled 8with Currant Sauce 6Grilled 3 See all 15 →

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