Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Haunch of Venison
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the haunch in lukewarm milk and water, then dry it thoroughly.
Cover the haunch with a sheet of well-buttered white paper.
Make a coarse paste of flour and water, about ¼ inch thick, and cover the paper with it.
Tie the paste on with packthread and prepare a substantial fire.
Roast
Place the haunch over the fire and baste it constantly with fresh beef dripping until nearly done.
Remove the paste, baste the meat with butter, and lightly dredge with flour until it froths and turns light brown.
Serve
Serve with its own gravy, good brown gravy, and a sauce of currant jelly mixed with port wine and sugar.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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
- Haunch of venison
- Is the main cut of meat that makes up the whole dish and sets its texture and flavour.
- Flour
- Forms the protective paste and, dredged on at the end, helps the surface froth and brown.
- Beef dripping
- Bastes the meat with fat, keeping the surface moist and aiding browning as it roasts.
- Butter
- Adds fat for basting, enriching the surface and encouraging golden browning.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and fruity acidity to the sauce, balancing the rich, gamey meat.
- Port wine
- Adds depth and sweetness to the sauce, complementing the rich flavour of the venison.
The step that matters
Basting constantly over the fire. Frequent basting with fat keeps the surface from drying and scorching before the interior is cooked. Consistent coating also helps the outside brown evenly, so the meat stays moist within.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, milk, butter, flour, beef, port wine, sugar):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against venison, milk, butter, flour, beef, port wine, sugar. 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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