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Venison Ham

A venison ham that is larded with bacon, pickled in olive oil, salt, spices, thyme, onion, and red wine, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,948 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Venison Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the ham and lard it with thin slices of bacon.

  2. Soak the ham for 5 to 6 hours in a mixture of olive oil, salt, spices, thyme, sliced onion, and red wine, turning it occasionally.

Roast

  1. Remove the ham from the pickle and roast it before a bright fire, basting it with the pickle.

  2. Cook for 1 to 2 hours.

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. Olive + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Thyme + red winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together749 recipes

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

  5. Olive + red winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main cut of meat that becomes tender and flavorful during soaking and roasting.
Olive oil
Carries the spices and herbs through the pickle and keeps the surface moist during roasting.
Red wine
Adds acidity and flavor to the pickle, helping to tenderize the meat.
Bacon (in the method)
Adds fat and savory flavor inside the lean venison as it cooks.
Sliced onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Soaking the ham in the pickle. The soak needs the full 5 to 6 hours with occasional turning so the marinade reaches all sides of the meat. Uneven soaking leaves the surface seasoned and the interior bland.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, olive, thyme, red wine):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, olive, thyme, red 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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