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Roast Haunch of Venison

A roasted venison haunch coated in a flour paste, basted with claret and butter, served with a gravy made from the drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the haunch of venison well in lukewarm water.

  2. Rub the haunch all over with butter.

  3. Cover the haunch on all sides with a stiff paste made of flour and water.

  4. Place the haunch in a roasting pan with a little water.

  5. Wet the paste occasionally to prevent cracking.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Remove the paste.

  3. Test the haunch with a skewer.

  4. Return the haunch to the oven.

  5. Baste the haunch every 5 minutes with claret and melted butter.

  6. Dredge the haunch with flour.

  7. Baste the haunch with butter.

  8. Brown the haunch.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add browned flour, currant jelly, claret, pepper, and salt to the liquid in the dripping pan.

  2. Boil the gravy.

  3. Serve the gravy in a 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy with slow roasting.
Flour
Forms a stiff paste that encloses the meat, protecting it from drying during roasting.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown during basting.
Claret
Moistens the meat during basting and adds flavour to the gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Wet the paste occasionally to prevent cracking.. A dry flour paste cracks and can let the meat dry out. Keeping it moist keeps the seal intact so the haunch stays juicy during long roasting.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, 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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