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Venison Steak

Venison steak served with a red wine and currant jelly gravy.

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 ↓

Venison Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Cut steaks from the leg ½ inch thick.

  2. Broil the steaks for about five minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine red wine and currant jelly.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter.

  3. Boil the gravy once, then pour it over the steak.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Red wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 steaks
Lean meat that is cooked quickly and carries the main flavour of the dish.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy as it reduces with the jelly.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy, balancing the wine's acidity.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the steak rather than running off.
Butter
Adds richness and helps thicken the gravy with flour, and adds fat to the steak.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy once, then pour it over the steak. Flour needs to reach a boil to fully thicken the liquid and lose its raw starchy taste. Boiling it once, then serving promptly, keeps the gravy smooth and glossy rather than letting it over-thicken or separate.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, red wine, 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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