Name: Haunch of Venison
Ingredients: 1 haunch of venison (20-25 lb); oiled paper; paste; coarse sea salt; strong brown gravy; red currant jelly

Why it works: Venison and red currant work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Haunch of 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

Remove lymphatic glands from the haunch before hanging.
Hang the haunch for proper aging.

Roast

Cover the haunch with oiled paper and paste.
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 4.5 hours, longer in cold weather.
Remove the envelopes when done, dredge the outside with salt, and froth it.

Serve

Serve with strong brown gravy and red 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.

Venison + red curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together81 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison haunch: Lean, dense meat that becomes tender and juicy with long hanging and slow roasting.
Oiled paper and paste: Encases the meat, trapping moisture so it stays juicy during the long roast.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the outside and helps form a flavourful crust when the meat is frothed.
Red currant jelly: Adds tart sweetness that balances the rich, gamey flavour of the venison.

The step that matters

Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 4.5 hours, longer in cold weather.. A large joint needs enough time for heat to reach the centre while the paste envelope protects the surface from drying out. Cold weather slows heating, so the roast needs extra time to reach doneness.

“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.