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Haunch of Venison Roasted

A roasted haunch of venison served with a rich gravy made from venison scraps, currant jelly, claret, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Haunch of Venison Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the haunch

  1. Wash the haunch in lukewarm water.

  2. Rub it with butter or lard.

  3. Place it in a dripping pan and cover the top and sides with a paste made of flour and water, about ½ inch thick.

  4. Lay a thin buttered paper over the paste.

  5. Cover with a sheet of foolscap, securing it with buttered twine.

  6. Pour a little water into the pan.

Roast

  1. Place the pan in a 400 °F (200 °C) oven.

  2. Baste occasionally with butter and hot water to prevent the paper from burning.

  3. Maintain a strong, steady fire and roast for about two hours.

  4. Check doneness with a skewer.

  5. In the last half hour, remove the paper and paste.

  6. Baste often with claret and butter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Stew the venison scraps in 1 pint and ½ cup water with cloves, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne until reduced by one third.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Return the gravy to the saucepan.

  4. Add currant jelly, claret, and butter mixed with browned and white flour.

  5. Serve the gravy in a gravy boat.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Clove + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so the joint roasts through while staying moist under its paste.
Flour and water paste
Forms a protective crust that shields the meat from drying and burning in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, and helps the surface brown while basting.
Claret
Adds acidity and flavour to the basting liquid and the gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy.
Browned and white flour
Thickens the gravy and gives it a richer, deeper colour.

The step that matters

Removing the paper and paste in the last half hour. Leaving the paste on too long keeps the surface from browning and crisping, while removing it too early can dry out the exposed meat. Timing this step lets the outside brown while the inside stays juicy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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