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Roasted Shoulder of Venison

Roasted shoulder of venison larded with butter, seasoned with salt and cayenne, served with red‑currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Roasted Shoulder of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bone and stuff the shoulder of venison.

  2. Lard the meat and cover it with several layers of buttered paper.

Roast and finish

  1. Roast or bake the venison, basting frequently, but avoid basting the larded parts.

  2. When nearly done, season with salt and cayenne.

  3. Remove the buttered paper and brown the lardons.

  4. Remove the skins used to confine the stuffing and serve hot with 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. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  2. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together955 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the lean meat that is roasted.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and the buttered paper keeps the meat from drying out while it roasts.
Red-currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Basting around the larded parts. Frequent basting moistens the lean meat, but liquid on the larded parts can wash off the fat and stop the lardons from browning well, so those areas should be left alone.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, pepper. 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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