Name: Venison Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons currant jelly; 1 stick cinnamon; 1 blade mace; grated white bread; 10 tablespoons water

Why it works: Cinnamon and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Venison Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Combine currant jelly, cinnamon, mace, grated white bread, and water in a saucepan.
Let it stew until thickened.
Serve the sauce in a dish alongside venison steak.

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.

Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,791 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Currant + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,705 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Currant + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,398 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).