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Venison Steak

A pan‑seared venison steak served with butter, parsley, and currant or cranberry jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Venison Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the venison steak and cover; cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Turn the steak and cook for an additional 3 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then add parsley and jelly.

  5. Simmer all together for 6 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on hot plates.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Butter + venisontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison steak
Main protein; searing and gentle covered cooking set its texture and juiciness.
Currant or cranberry jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity, and melts into a glaze as it simmers.
Butter
Conducts heat in the skillet and adds richness and browning to the steak.

The step that matters

Simmer all together for 6 minutes. Once the jelly goes in, the sugars can scorch and the sauce can turn too thick or bitter if the heat is too high. Keep the heat gentle so the jelly melts into a glossy glaze.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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