Skip to main content
Main

Roasted Haunch of Venison

A roasted venison haunch flavored with thyme, port wine, and sea salt, served with gravy and red‑currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roasted Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the haunch for a considerable time to enhance flavor.

  2. Wash the haunch in warm milk and water, then dry with a clean cloth.

  3. If the skin smells musty, remove it and wrap the haunch in buttered paper.

Roast

  1. Roast the haunch, basting constantly.

  2. Roast a large buck haunch for about 4 hours, a smaller one for 3.5 hours, and a doe haunch for 3.25 hours.

  3. Remove the paper when cooked and dredge with flour to create a froth.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with 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.

  1. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

  3. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Port wine + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together364 recipes

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

  5. Venison + thymetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison haunch
Forms the main lean meat that is roasted and carved for the dish.
Salad oil
Adds fat that helps the surface brown and keeps the meat moist while basting.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged over the cooked haunch to form a light, frothy coating.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, spiced aroma to the meat.
Thyme
Adds a herbal aroma to the roasting meat.

The step that matters

Roast the haunch, basting constantly. Lean venison dries out quickly in the oven. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and promotes even browning, while cooking for the right time for the haunch's size prevents it from becoming dry or tough.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, port wine, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, port wine, clove. 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.

You might also like

Roast VenisonRoast Venison20 recipesVenison PastyVenison Pasty7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes