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Roast Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison coated in a flour paste, basted with butter and water, served with a currant jelly and lemon gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Roast Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the haunch

  1. Wipe the haunch of venison with a damp cloth; do not soak in water.

  2. Rub the meat with butter.

  3. Make a thick paste of flour and water, about ½ inch deep, and cover the top and sides of the meat.

Roast

  1. Lay a coarse paper over the paste and place in the oven with 1 cup of hot water in the dripping pan.

  2. Keep the oven heated and baste every 15 minutes with butter and water.

  3. Twenty minutes before serving, remove the paste and paper, and dredge the meat with flour.

  4. Baste with butter until the meat is light brown.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the gravy into a pan; there should be about 1 pint.

  2. Thicken the gravy with 1 tablespoon of browned flour, then add 2 tablespoons of currant jelly, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, ½ teaspoon of salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper.

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. 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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 haunch
The main meat, which roasting cooks through and browns on the outside.
Butter
Fat that enriches the surface and helps it turn golden brown while basting.
Flour paste
Forms a protective crust that helps hold moisture in the meat as it roasts.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Basting every 15 minutes. Regular basting keeps the meat's surface moist and helps it brown evenly. Letting the oven or dripping pan run dry can leave the outside dry and the surface uneven.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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