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Haunch Op Venison

A roasted haunch of venison coated in a sweet dripping and flour paste, served with a mutton and organ gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Haunch Op Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Hang the venison in a dry place for 3 days to 3 weeks, rubbing it dry with a clean cloth morning and night.

  2. When ready to cook, saw off the shank and chine bones, strip off the skin, and trim off rough pieces.

Make the paste

  1. Make a paste by rubbing the sweet dripping into the flour and bran, then mix with hot water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Let the paste stand for 1 hour, then roll it out to ½ inch thick and cover the venison completely.

Roast and baste

  1. Hang the venison before a solid fire for 45 minutes, then roast gradually, basting frequently with dissolved dripping.

  2. Allow 13 minutes per pound, including the paste.

  3. Half an hour before serving, split the paste with a knife and remove it, dredging the haunch with baked flour and basting with butter until done.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, combine the mutton, liver, kidney, and venison trimmings in a stewpan with shallot, carrot, salt, clove, bay leaf, peppercorns, and butter, frying until brown.

  2. Add rum or brandy, black onion, and water, then simmer to make the gravy.

  3. Serve the venison on a hot dish with the fat side up, pouring a little gravy into the dish.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet dripping
Enriches the flour paste and keeps the meat moist as it roasts.
Flour
Forms the stiff paste crust that encloses and protects the venison while it cooks.
Bran
Adds bulk and texture to the paste so it holds its shape.
Butter
Basting fat that adds richness and helps the outer surface brown.
Liver
Adds depth and body to the gravy as it fries and simmers.
Scrag of mutton
Builds the savoury meat base of the gravy through browning and simmering.

The step that matters

Basting frequently with dissolved dripping. Regular basting keeps the surface of the large lean joint from drying out, and the fat helps it brown evenly during gradual roasting.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

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