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Baked Saddle of Venison

A roasted saddle of venison cooked with salt pork, vegetables, spices, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Saddle of Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the saddle of venison thoroughly, ensuring no hairs remain.

  2. Lard the saddle with strips of salt pork, placing two rows on each side.

  3. In a large dripping pan, combine sliced carrots, onion, salt pork, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, lemon, salt, and pepper.

Bake

  1. Place the saddle in the pan and add the boiling stock and butter.

  2. Boil on the stove for about 15 minutes.

  3. Transfer to a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake, basting every 5 minutes, until medium rare.

Serve

  1. Serve with jelly or a wine sauce.

  2. For well-done venison, cook longer and serve with cream sauce.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison saddle
Is the main meat, cooked gently to stay tender and juicy when served medium rare.
Salt pork
Larding strips add fat that bastes the lean venison and keeps it moist during baking.
Stock
Boiling stock in the pan provides moisture and flavour for basting and forming a sauce base.
Carrots
Aromatic vegetables flavour the pan liquid and sauce as they cook down.
Onion
Aromatic vegetable that adds savoury sweetness and depth to the pan liquid.

The step that matters

Baking until medium rare with regular basting. Venison is very lean, so overcooking quickly makes it dry and tough. Frequent basting with the pan liquid keeps the surface moist while the interior heats gradually, and checking for doneness before the meat passes medium rare prevents toughness.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pork, carrot, onion, clove, allspice, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pork, carrot, onion, clove, allspice, 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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