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Baked Saddle of Venison

A roasted saddle of venison baked with butter, salt, pepper, and a currant jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

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 the venison

  1. Remove the ribs from the saddle of venison.

  2. Wipe the meat with a soft cloth dampened with warm water.

  3. Cover the upper part of the saddle with thickly buttered paper.

  4. Place the saddle on a rack in a baking pan.

Roast and baste

  1. Brown the joint quickly in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the paper and season the venison with salt and pepper.

  3. In the dripping pan, combine butter, boiling water, and currant jelly.

  4. Baste the venison with the sauce until it is fully browned.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with the sauce in a gravy 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. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together955 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of venison
Forms the main joint, and its lean meat is the dish itself.
Butter
Protects the upper meat while browning and adds richness to the pan sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the basting sauce and helps it caramelise on the surface.

The step that matters

Remove the paper and season the venison with salt and pepper.. Once the buttered paper is removed, the exposed surface is what browns. Seasoning it then, with the meat already hot, helps the surface brown evenly before basting.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Red currantfits better
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, 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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