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To Roast Venison

A roasted venison saddle marinated in vinegar, spices, and claret, then slow‑cooked with a flour paste and served with a reduced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Roast Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Wash the saddle of venison 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.

  6. Pour claret wine over the venison.

  7. Let it stand overnight.

Roast

  1. Cover 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.

  4. Baste often.

  5. Half an hour before serving, remove the paste and paper.

  6. Baste with butter.

  7. Dredge with flour to brown.

Make the sauce

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

  2. Skim off fat.

  3. Strain.

  4. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Vinegar + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together883 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of venison
Forms the main meat; its lean muscle cooks through and carries the flavour of the dish.
Salt pork
Lardons add fat and moisture, keeping the lean venison from drying out during roasting.
Flour and water paste
Encloses the meat, trapping moisture and steam so the venison roasts gently inside.
Claret
Acidity and wine flavour tenderise the meat and add depth to the pan juices and sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the glaze and sauce, balancing the gamy meat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown during basting.

The step that matters

Cover with the flour paste and paper. The paste must seal the meat well, since it traps steam and keeps the lean venison moist. A thin or gappy crust lets juices escape and the meat dries out.

Swap the basil

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  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.

“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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