Why it works: Currant and port wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Venison
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the haunch in warm water and dry it with a cloth.
Cover the haunch and baste it well.
Roast
Remove the paper when the meat is nearly done.
Dust the meat lightly to prevent fat from melting.
Cook it in its own gravy for flavor.
Serve
Serve hot with gravy and currant jelly, or melted in port wine.
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.
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Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together356 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together239 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,499 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together443 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together957 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
- The main cut; its lean muscle sets the texture of the whole dish.
- Butter
- Adds fat that moistens the meat and helps the surface brown.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and a tart fruit note that balances the rich meat.
- Port wine
- Adds depth and fruity sweetness to the gravy.
The step that matters
Remove the paper when the meat is nearly done. Paper shields the surface while the meat cooks through; removing it near the end lets the outside dry and brown. Removing it too early can dry the surface, and leaving it on too long stops browning.
“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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