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Saddle Op Venison Roasted

A roasted saddle of venison filled with salt pork, served with brown gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and currant work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 443 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Saddle Op Venison Roasted

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

  1. Make deep gashes in the venison following the grain of the meat.

  2. Fill the gashes with pieces of salt pork.

Roast and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C), basting frequently to keep the meat moist.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes per pound.

  3. Serve with brown gravy and currant 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. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  2. Venison + porktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pork + curranttop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of venison
Is the main meat that is roasted and carved for the dish.
Salt pork
Fat inserted into the gashes that melts during roasting, adding moisture and savoury flavour to the lean meat.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness to the sliced roast at serving.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, gamey flavour of the venison.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during the roast. Venison is very lean, so it dries out quickly in the oven. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps the meat stay tender and juicy as it cooks.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Pumpkinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pork. 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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