Name: Roast Shoulder of Venison
Ingredients: 1 shoulder of venison; greased paper; mutton fat

Why it works: Venison and mutton work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 279 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

1 shoulder of venison
greased paper
mutton fat

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

Hang the venison shoulder for about two weeks in a cool, well-ventilated area.
Wrap the shoulder in greased paper and cover it with mutton fat.

Roast and serve

Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Serve as recommended for the haunch.

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 + muttontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 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

Venison shoulder: Is the main meat, and its flesh becomes tender and flavourful during the slow hanging period.
Mutton fat: Covers the surface, adding moisture and richness while the meat 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.