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Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison wrapped in paper and cooked slowly with wine and currant jelly.

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

Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the haunch with lukewarm water and vinegar, then rub it well with butter or lard.

  2. Cover the top and sides with greased foolscap paper.

  3. Coat the haunch with a ½ inch thick paste of flour and water.

  4. Lay a large sheet of thin wrapping paper over the paste.

  5. Lay another sheet of stout foolscap over the wrapping paper.

  6. Tie everything down with pack-thread.

Roast covered

  1. Place the haunch in a dripping pan with 2 cups of boiling water at the bottom.

  2. Cover with another pan to keep in the steam.

  3. Cook the haunch for 1 hour.

  4. Check the paper to ensure it is not scorching.

  5. Wet the paper with hot water and a ladle of gravy.

  6. Cover the haunch again.

  7. Cook for another 1½ hours.

  8. Remove the papers and paste.

Brown and finish

  1. Test the meat with a skewer; if it goes in easily, close the door and let it brown for 30 minutes.

  2. Baste the haunch 4 times with wine and butter.

  3. Dredge the haunch with flour.

  4. Rub the haunch with butter to create a froth.

  5. Transfer the haunch to a hot dish.

  6. Roast the haunch for 30 minutes per pound.

Make the gravy

  1. Skim the gravy from the dripping pan.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with brown flour.

  4. Add 2 teaspoons of currant jelly.

  5. Add 1 glass of wine.

  6. Add pepper to taste.

  7. Add coarse sea salt to taste.

  8. Let the gravy boil for a moment.

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 + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 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
Lean meat that becomes tender and flavourful during long, slow cooking under paper.
Butter or lard
Fat that rubbed on the surface adds richness and helps the outside brown.
Flour
Forms a protective paste that shields the meat, and thickens the finished gravy.
Wine
Basting liquid that adds moisture and flavour and helps build colour on the surface.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Test the meat with a skewer before browning. The skewer shows whether the meat is tender enough to finish. Browning too early can dry the surface while the inside is still tough.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, wine, 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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