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Dress a Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison marinated in wine and butter, served with a sweet currant jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dress a Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

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

  1. Hang the haunch of venison for two weeks.

  2. To roast mutton like venison, cut the leg of a hind quarter of fat mutton. Place it in a pan, backside down, and pour a bottle of red wine over it.

  3. Let it marinate for 24 hours, then spit it and baste with the same wine and butter while roasting.

Make the sauce

  1. For sauce, warm currant jelly or simmer red wine with sugar for 5-6 minutes.

  2. Alternatively, simmer vinegar with sugar to make syrup.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with gravy and sweet sauce.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Red wine + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

  4. Venison + red winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison haunch
Hanging for two weeks is the aging step that tenderises the meat and develops its flavour.
Red wine
Acidity in the marinade and sauce helps tenderise the meat and adds depth of flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy body to the sauce, balancing the richness of the meat.
Sugar
Sweetness in the sauce and syrup, balancing the sharpness of wine and vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity in the syrup, sharpening the sweet sauce against the rich meat.
Butter
Fat for basting, adding moisture and helping the surface brown while roasting.

The step that matters

Marinating the mutton in wine for 24 hours. The acidic wine slowly softens the tough muscle fibres of the mutton, so the marinade needs the full time to work through the meat before roasting.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, red wine, sugar, vinegar, syrup, mutton, butter):

  1. Pearfits about as well
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, red wine, sugar, vinegar, syrup, mutton, butter. 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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