Why it works: Flour and beans are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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
Wipe the haunch of venison with a clean kitchen cloth.
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Spread a sheet of white paper with butter and sprinkle the paper with coarse sea salt.
Make a coarse paste of flour and water, about ½ inch thick.
Cover the haunch with the paste and tie the paste on with kitchen twine.
Roast
Hang the haunch at a distance from the fire.
Roast for 3.5 to 4 hours, basting often.
Fifteen minutes before serving, remove the paste.
Move the meat closer to the fire.
Baste the meat well with butter.
Dredge the meat with flour to create a frothy appearance.
Serve
Serve hot with gravy sauce, currant jelly sauce, and glasses of currant jelly.
Accompany with nicely-cooked French beans.
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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Flour + beanstop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 roast; its lean meat is the dish's centrepiece.
- Flour
- Forms a protective paste crust that shields the meat from drying in the heat.
- Butter
- Adds fat for basting, promoting moisture and golden browning on the surface.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, gamey flavour of the meat.
The step that matters
Remove the paste fifteen minutes before serving. Lean venison dries out easily under heat. The paste protects it during roasting, and removing it near the end lets the surface brown while the inside stays juicy.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, butter, flour, beans):
- Avocadofits better
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, beans. 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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