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Baked Venison

A venison roast baked with a flour paste and served with a spiced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Venison

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 meat

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Wash the venison in tepid water and dry it.

  3. Rub the meat with butter, drippings, or lard.

  4. Cover the meat with a thick paste of flour and water, molding it closely.

  5. Place the meat in a baking pan with boiling stock or gravy.

Bake and baste

  1. Bake, basting every 10 minutes.

  2. Thirty minutes before cooking is complete, remove the paste cover.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, simmer venison scraps in cold water, seasoning with cayenne, salt, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Remove scum as it rises and simmer until reduced by half.

  3. Strain the gravy and pour it into the baking pan after removing the meat.

  4. Stir in blended browned flour and boil once before serving.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Forms the main meat that becomes tender and juicy during slow baking under a cover.
Butter, drippings, or lard
Adds fat that coats the meat, enriching flavor and helping it brown and stay moist.
All-purpose flour
Forms a paste cover that seals in moisture while the meat bakes.
Stock or gravy
Provides liquid in the pan that keeps the meat moist and builds the sauce.
Blended browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a deeper, toasted flavor and color.

The step that matters

Removing the paste cover 30 minutes before the end. Removing the flour paste late lets the surface dry and brown; removing it too early can dry out the meat, while leaving it on too long prevents browning.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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