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Venison or Roebuck

A roasted haunch or quarter of roebuck larded with oil, onions, spices, and red wine, served with sauce poivrade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Venison or Roebuck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the haunch or quarter of roebuck.

  2. Let it steep in oil with onions, salt, pepper, spices, thyme, and red wine for 1–2 days.

Roast and serve

  1. Put the meat on a spit to roast.

  2. Baste it with the marinade during roasting.

  3. Serve with sauce poivrade.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Thyme + red winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together749 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Roebuck haunch or quarter
Forms the main meat, which the marinade and roasting work on for tenderness and flavour.
Red wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the marinade, helping tenderise the meat.
Oil
Carries the marinade flavours and helps keep the surface moist during roasting.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the marinade.

The step that matters

Basting with the marinade during roasting. Lean game meat dries out easily over long roasting. Regular basting with the marinade keeps the surface moist and adds flavour, while the marinade's acid and oil help build a browned, savoury crust.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, thyme, red wine):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, thyme, red wine. 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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