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Rehriicken.

A roasted saddle of venison cooked with butter, bacon, stock, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rehriicken.

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. Rub the saddle with a damp cloth and carefully skin it.

  2. Lard the saddle with thin strips of bacon.

Roast

  1. Place the joint in a baking tin, sprinkle with salt, and pour hot butter over it.

  2. Roast in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Add stock gradually.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add the cream thickened with a little flour.

  2. After about 30 minutes, carefully remove the meat in one piece from the bone.

  3. Slice the meat slantingly and replace it on the bone for serving.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Venison + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 saddle
The main lean meat, which browns and firms as it roasts.
Bacon
Lardons threaded through the lean venison add fat and moisture as they render.
Butter
Poured over the hot joint, it adds richness and helps the surface brown.
Stock
Added gradually to form the liquid base of the pan sauce.
Sour cream
Adds tang and a creamy body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream as its starch swells with heat.

The step that matters

Thickening the sour cream. Sour cream can curdle or split if it boils hard or is added too hot. Adding it thickened with flour and keeping the heat gentle helps it stay smooth and cohesive.

“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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