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Venison Va LA Mode

A roasted venison haunch stuffed with breadcrumbs, pork, onion, celery, parsley, and sage, served with tart jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Venison Va LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Remove the bone from the haunch of venison.

  2. Make a stuffing with bread crumbs, bits of pork, minced onion, celery or celery seed, parsley, and sage. Season the stuffing with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Press the stuffing into the hole left by the bone and sew it up.

  4. Spread lard over the opening and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast the venison for three to four hours at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cover the meat with a paste made of flour and water until nearly done.

  3. Cover with thick paper tied on.

  4. Remove the paper.

  5. Baste the meat with drippings seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little browned flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat with a tart jelly.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 body of the dish, cooked slowly so the lean meat becomes tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and drippings in the stuffing, keeping the interior moist and lightly bound.
Bits of pork
Add fat to the stuffing, contributing moisture and richness as it cooks.
Lard
Fat spread over the opening that promotes browning and helps seal in moisture.
Flour
Forms the protective paste over the meat and, browned, seasons the basting drippings.

The step that matters

Cover the meat with the flour paste and remove the paper at the right time. The flour and water paste and paper wrap shield the lean venison from direct heat, slowing drying. Removing the paper late allows the surface to brown and the basting drippings to concentrate.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, bread, pork, celery, parsley, sage, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, bread, pork, celery, parsley, sage, 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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