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Roast Venison

Roast venison with butter, water, sherry, currant jelly, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Roast Venison

Why it works: Sherry and currant work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Roast Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the venison quickly and rub it with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the venison in a baking pan with water and butter.

Roast and finish

  1. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes per pound.

  2. Just before removing from the oven, pour in the sherry or Madeira wine and currant jelly.

  3. Remove the venison from the pan to a hot dish.

  4. Add cracker crumbs to the gravy and serve at once.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Is the main meat, cooked whole by roasting until done.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pan juices that form the gravy.
Sherry or madeira wine
Deglazes the pan and adds acidity and aroma to the gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy and helps it brown slightly.
Cracker crumbs
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat.

The step that matters

Adding the wine and jelly just before removing the venison. Adding sherry or Madeira and jelly too early lets the sugars in the jelly darken and burn in the hot oven, and the alcohol cooks off. Adding them late keeps the gravy flavour bright and the pan juices from scorching.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, butter, pepper, sherry):

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, pepper, sherry. 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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