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To Roast Venison

A method of roasting a saddle of venison with vinegar, spices, and claret wine, then baking with a flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 Roast Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  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 and brown

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

  2. Cover with soft paper.

  3. Secure with strings.

  4. Place in a dripping pan with claret, butter, and water.

  5. Baste often.

  6. Remove the paste and paper.

  7. Baste with butter.

  8. Dredge with flour to brown.

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

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

  5. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison saddle
Is the main meat, whose lean flesh is cooked through and served as the centrepiece.
Salt pork
Its fat melts into the lean venison, adding moisture and richness as it bastes the meat.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy surface that helps the meat brown during roasting.
Claret wine
Acidity tenderises the meat while its flavour carries into the pan juices.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting a golden colour and a rich, moist surface.
Flour
Forms a protective paste and a dusted coating that helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Basting often under the paste. The flour-and-water paste and paper shield the lean meat from drying, while regular basting with pan liquid keeps the surface moist and lets it brown evenly once the coverings are removed.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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