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To Boil Venison Steaks

Grilled venison steaks coated in crackers or flour, served with butter, salt, pepper, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

To Boil Venison Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grill

  1. Preheat the gridiron over a bright, clear fire of coals.

  2. Rub the bars with a bit of suet.

Grill the steaks

  1. Dip the venison steaks in rolled crackers or wheat flour.

  2. Place the coated steaks on the gridiron.

  3. Cook one side until done.

  4. Transfer the steaks to a dish to catch the juices.

  5. Turn the steaks.

  6. Let them broil nicely.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Heat a dish.

  2. Add a piece of butter, salt, and black pepper to the dish.

  3. Mix currant jelly with hot water or wine.

  4. Pour the mixture over the steaks.

  5. Turn the steaks in the gravy.

  6. Serve hot.

  7. Alternatively, serve simply with butter, pepper, and salt, or with lemon slices on top.

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. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison steaks
The main protein; cooking it over coals browns the surface and sets its texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the meat moist.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the pan sauce, balancing the savoury meat.
Rolled crackers or wheat flour
Coats the steaks, helping them brown and giving a light crust.

The step that matters

Let them broil nicely. Searing over a hot, clear fire browns the surface and seals in juices. Cooking too long or on weak heat dries the lean venison and toughens it.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, wheat, butter, egg, 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.

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