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Venison Roast

A roasted venison piece seasoned with lemon, butter, salt, pepper, onion, carrot, and served with spiced grape jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Venison Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the roast with lemon.

  2. Dot with butter and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Finely chop the onion and carrot, then spread over the meat.

Cook and serve

  1. Baste often and cook for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve with spiced grape jelly.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Lemon + carrottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison roast
Is the main cut of meat, providing the substance and flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps keep the surface moist as it cooks.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavor and moisture as it softens and releases juices over the meat.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and moisture as it cooks alongside the meat.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the venison.

The step that matters

Baste often. Venison is very lean, so it can dry out quickly. Regular basting with the pan juices and melted fat keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, lemon, butter, pepper, onion, carrot. 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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