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Roast Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison cooked with a flour and water paste, buttered paper, and served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Roast Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the haunch of venison in tepid water and dry it thoroughly with a clean, soft cloth.

  2. Cover the fat side with a large sheet of thickly buttered paper.

  3. Spread a paste of flour and water about ¾ inch thick over the paper.

  4. Cover with 2-3 sheets of stout paper and secure with twine.

Roast

  1. Place in a roasting pan with a little water and roast in a clear, strong fire.

  2. Baste the paper with butter or clarified drippings.

  3. Roast for 3-4 hours, depending on weight and quality; deer venison requires 30 minutes less.

  4. About 20 minutes before done, remove the paste and paper, baste the meat with butter, and lightly dredge with flour.

  5. Let it brown lightly and serve hot with unflavored gravy and good currant 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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Venison + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 haunch
Lean, dense meat that becomes tender and juicy when slow-roasted under a protective covering.
Flour and water paste
Forms a protective crust that shields the meat from drying and burning during the long roast.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting moisture and golden browning on the surface.
Flour
Dusted on at the end, it helps the surface take on a light, even browning.

The step that matters

Removing the paste and paper about 20 minutes before done. Timing matters: leaving the covering on too long prevents browning, while removing it too early lets the lean meat dry out. Basting with butter then supports browning and moisture at the finish.

“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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