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Ilaunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison served with its gravy and a separate brown gravy, accompanied by a sauce of currant jelly, red port, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ilaunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the venison

  1. Prepare a substantial fire and spit the haunch of venison.

  2. Baste and flour the meat for a few minutes.

  3. Cover the fat part with veal caul or double paper secured with string.

  4. Roast for about 4 hours, allowing 15 minutes per pound.

  5. Baste the meat regularly while roasting.

  6. Remove the caul or paper near the end of cooking.

  7. Dredge the meat with flour and baste with butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat with its own gravy and a separate brown gravy.

  2. Prepare a sauce with currant jelly, red port, and sugar to serve on the side.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 body of the roast, providing the meat that is cooked and carved.
Flour
Dredged onto the surface so it browns and forms a crisp, golden crust.
Butter
Basted over the meat to add richness and help the surface brown evenly.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the gravy, softening its flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity acidity to the side sauce served with the meat.
Red port
Adds depth and a sweet, fortified wine flavour to the side sauce.

The step that matters

Remove the caul or paper near the end of cooking. Covering protects the fatty part from drying and scorching during the long roast, but leaving it on too long stops the surface from browning. Removing it near the end lets the crust brown and crisp while the meat stays moist.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, cream, butter, flour, onion, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, cream, butter, flour, onion, 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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