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Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison coated in a flour‑egg paste and served with currant jelly.

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 ↓

Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the venison

  1. Remove the chump bone from the haunch.

  2. Rub the underside with coarse sea salt.

Make and wrap the paste

  1. Mix flour, eggs, and a little water to form a firm paste.

  2. Wrap the paste in a wet cloth and let it rest for 1 hour.

  3. Roll out the paste to the thickness of a coin.

  4. Spit the venison and wrap it completely in the paste.

  5. Seal the edges by wetting them and pressing together.

  6. Wrap the venison in a piece of buttered paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours.

  2. Remove the paper, allow the paste to brown, and serve with 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.

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

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

  2. Venison + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

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

  5. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Haunch of venison
Forms the main meat, which cooks slowly inside the sealed paste.
Flour
Forms the firm paste that encloses and shapes the venison during roasting.
Eggs
Add richness and bind the flour into a firm, workable dough.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness to balance the rich, savoury meat.

The step that matters

Seal the paste fully around the venison. Any gap in the paste lets juices escape and the meat dry out during the long roast. Wetting the edges helps them bond so the seal stays intact in the oven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, flour, egg. 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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