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Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison coated in a sweet dripping and flour paste, served with a mutton and organ gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Hang the venison in a dry, airy place for 10 days to 3 weeks, rubbing it dry with a clean cloth morning and night.

  2. Remove the shank and chine bones, strip off the skin, and trim rough pieces.

Make the paste

  1. Mix the sweet dripping, flour, and bran into a stiff paste with hot water.

  2. Let the paste stand for 1 hour.

  3. Roll the paste out to ½ inch thick and cover the venison completely, ensuring even thickness.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the venison before a solid fire for 45 minutes.

  2. Let it roast gradually, basting frequently with dissolved dripping.

  3. Cook for 13 minutes per pound, including the paste.

  4. Half an hour before serving, split the paste with a knife and remove it.

  5. Dredge the haunch with baked flour and baste with melted butter until done.

  6. Serve the venison on a hot dish with the fat side up, pouring some gravy over it.

Make the gravy

  1. Combine mutton, liver, kidney, and venison trimmings in a stewpan with shallot, carrot, salt, clove, bay leaf, peppercorns, and butter.

  2. Fry until brown.

  3. Add rum or brandy, black onion, and water.

  4. Simmer for 4 hours.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

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

  5. 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 haunch
Is the main meat, cooked whole under its protective flour crust.
All-purpose flour
Forms the stiff paste that encloses the venison and protects it while it roasts.
Sweet dripping
Adds fat to the paste and to the basting, keeping the meat moist and flavorful.
Bran
Adds bulk and texture to the paste, helping it hold its shape as a crust.
Scrag of mutton
Builds the rich body of the gravy during long, slow simmering.
Liver
Adds depth and savoriness to the gravy base.

The step that matters

Splitting and removing the paste. Removing the paste late lets the exposed surface brown and crisp. Cutting it too early leaves the meat pale, and leaving it too long can scorch the surface.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, flour, butter, mutton, liver, shallot, carrot):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, flour, butter, mutton, liver, shallot, carrot. 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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