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Neck or Shoulder of Venison, Roasted

A roasted joint of venison neck or shoulder served with butter, flour, mutton gravy, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and mutton work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 279 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Neck or Shoulder of Venison, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and roast

  1. Prepare the venison by skewering it with three small skewers.

  2. Roast the venison over the fire without covering it.

  3. Baste the joint with butter as it warms up.

Finish and serve

  1. Dredge the venison lightly with flour about twenty minutes before it's done.

  2. Serve with unseasoned mutton gravy and currant jelly, either cold or melted.

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. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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
The main cut; its lean muscle becomes savoury and firm as it roasts.
Butter
Basting adds moisture and golden browning to the surface of the joint.
Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the surface brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Dredging with flour about twenty minutes before the end. Flour browns and crisps during the final roasting, forming a golden crust. Added too early, it can scorch; added too late, it stays pale and floury instead of browning well.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Currantthe original
  2. Red currantfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits less well
  4. Pumpkinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, mutton. 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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