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To Boast Venison

A roasted saddle of venison seasoned, coated with a paste, and served with a sauce of claret, currant jelly, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Boast Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the saddle of venison thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Rub it with vinegar, red pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Lard with strips of salt pork rolled in seasoned bread crumbs.

  4. Season with sweet marjoram, sweet basil, and pepper.

  5. Rub the whole with currant jelly.

  6. Pour over claret wine.

  7. Let it stand overnight.

Roast

  1. Cover the venison with a paste made of flour and water, half an inch thick.

  2. Cover with soft paper and secure with strings.

  3. Place in a dripping pan with claret, butter, and water, and baste often.

  4. Half an hour before removing, take off the paste and paper.

  5. Baste with butter.

  6. Dredge with flour to brown.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, boil scraps of venison with water, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and cayenne until reduced to a pint.

  2. Skim off the fat and strain.

  3. Add currant jelly, claret, and butter rolled in flour.

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. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Vinegar + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together883 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison saddle
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long, slow roast.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour as it soaks in and bastes the meat.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness that balances the wine and savoury meat, and helps the sauce body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the meat moist while basting and enriching the sauce.
Salt pork
Adds fat through the lean venison, keeping it moist during roasting.
Flour
Forms the protective paste, and dredging helps the surface brown; rolled in butter it thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Removing the paste and paper half an hour before the end. The paste and paper shield the meat so it cooks gently and keeps its moisture. Removing them late lets the surface dry and brown, so timing matters.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, vinegar, pepper, pork, bread, marjoram, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, vinegar, pepper, pork, bread, marjoram, 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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