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Roast Saddle of Venison

A roasted saddle of venison seasoned with salt and pepper, served with a Madeira and currant jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Roast Saddle of Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and roast

  1. Wipe the meat and sprinkle it with coarse sea salt and pepper.

  2. Place the meat on a rack in a dripping pan and dredge it with flour.

  3. Add the onion, carrot, and celery to the pan.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 50 minutes, basting every 15 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, add the fat from the pan to a saucepan and stir in the flour.

  2. Gradually pour in the white stock and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the Madeira wine and melted currant jelly.

  4. Strain and 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison saddle
Is the main cut of meat, cooked whole so it stays moist and tender while roasting.
Flour
Dredged on the meat and whisked into the pan fat to thicken the sauce.
Fat from the pan
Carries flavour from the roast and forms the base roux for the sauce.
White stock
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, adding savoury depth.
Madeira wine
Adds aromatic, slightly sweet depth that rounds out the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Basting during the roast. Regular basting every 15 minutes keeps the surface moist and helps the meat brown evenly, so the lean venison does not dry out during the long roast.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, flour, onion, carrot, celery, madeira wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, flour, onion, carrot, celery, madeira 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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