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To Roast a Haunch of Venison

A method for roasting a haunch of venison with pepper or ginger, flour, butter, and twine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

To Roast a Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Wipe the venison with soft, dry cloths to remove moisture.

  2. Dust the surface with freshly-ground pepper or powdered ginger.

  3. Wash the venison lightly with tepid water or wipe it with damp cloths, then dry it with clean cloths.

Wrap the haunch

  1. Cover the fat side with a large sheet of thickly-buttered paper.

  2. Make a paste of flour and water about ¾ inch thick and spread it over the paper.

  3. Cover with 2-3 sheets of stout paper and secure with twine.

Roast

  1. Place the haunch over a clear fire and baste the paper with butter or clarified dripping.

  2. Roast the joint until cooked to your preference.

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

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

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 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).

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 body of the joint, so its lean meat and fat set the texture and flavour of the dish.
Butter or clarified dripping
Bastes the paper, adding fat that moistens the meat and helps the wrapping brown.
Flour
With water, forms a thick paste that seals the paper wrapping around the joint.

The step that matters

Roast the joint until cooked to your preference. Venison is very lean, so it dries out quickly when overcooked. Checking doneness carefully and basting the paper keeps the meat moist while it roasts.

“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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