Name: Venison Patties
Ingredients: remains of venison; ⅓ cup sherry or gravy; pretty shells for serving; wine jelly; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 tablespoon currant jelly; ½ cup Madeira

Why it works: Sherry and currant work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Venison Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Make a nicely flavored mince of the remains of the venison.

Serve

Moisten the mince with sherry or gravy and warm in a chafing dish.
Fill pretty shells with the meat.
Serve with wine jelly.

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.

Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together443 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,505 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Wine + curranttop 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: Provides the main meat, which is minced and gives the patties their core flavor.
Sherry or gravy: Adds moisture and savory flavor to the mince while it warms.
Wine jelly: Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich, savory meat.

Swap the currant

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

Grapefits better
Plumfits better
Lemonfits about as well
Currantthe original

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