Skip to main content
Main

To Roast Yenison

A roasted venison saddle seasoned with vinegar, spices, and claret wine, served with a sauce of venison scraps, currant jelly, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Basil and wine work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 936 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the saddle of venison thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Rub it with vinegar, red pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Lard with strips of salt pork rolled in seasoned bread crumbs.

  4. Season with sweet marjoram, sweet basil, and pepper.

  5. Rub the whole with currant jelly and pour over the claret wine.

  6. Let it stand overnight.

Roast

  1. Cover the venison with a paste made of flour and water, half an inch thick.

  2. Cover with soft paper and secure with strings.

  3. Place in a dripping pan with claret, butter, and water, and baste often.

  4. Take off the paste and paper.

  5. Baste with butter.

  6. Dredge with flour to brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil scraps of venison with water, cloves, mace, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne to taste until reduced to a pint.

  2. Skim off the fat and strain.

  3. Add currant jelly, claret, and butter rolled in flour.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Basil + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Vinegar + winetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of venison
Is the main cut of meat, providing the body and substance of the dish.
Salt pork
Adds fat through larding, keeping the lean venison moist as it roasts.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture during basting and helps the surface brown.
Flour
Forms the protective paste and, dredged on top, helps the surface brown.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce and a glossy finish.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor to the marinade, basting liquid and sauce.

The step that matters

Basting often in the dripping pan. Venison is very lean, so frequent basting with claret, butter and drippings keeps the surface moist and prevents drying, while building an even brown crust.

Flavor stand-ins for the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, vinegar, pepper, pork, bread, marjoram, wine):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Sagebetter flavor fit
  3. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, vinegar, pepper, pork, bread, marjoram, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

More roast venison recipes

Haunch 28 See all 32 →

You might also like

Illustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of Pork CakeIllustrationPork Cake107 recipesIllustration of Roast PorkIllustrationRoast Pork82 recipesIllustration of White BreadIllustrationWhite Bread80 recipes