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For Roasting a Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison wrapped in a thin wheat flour paste, served with gravy and sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

For Roasting a Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Spit the haunch of venison.

  2. Knead wheat flour with water and roll it very thin.

  3. Wrap the paste over the fat part of the venison with pack thread.

Roast

  1. Roast a large haunch for four hours or a medium haunch for three hours, basting continuously.

  2. Half an hour before it's done, remove the paste, baste again, and let it brown lightly.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy in the dish and sweet sauce in a bowl.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Haunch of venison
Is the main cut of meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender and juicy.
Wheat flour
Forms a thin paste that shields the fat and meat from drying and scorching during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the surface brown.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the serving dish.
Sweet sauce
Adds sweetness that contrasts with the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Remove the paste and baste before the end. Removing the flour paste late exposes the meat so the surface can brown lightly. Basting during this stage keeps the surface moist while it browns, so the meat does not dry out.

“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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