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The Christmas Dinner

A roasted venison prepared with a flour paste, butter, and a walnut catsup and currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The Christmas Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Purchase the venison a week in advance.

  2. Hang the venison in a cool place.

  3. Wash the venison daily with vinegar.

  4. Wash the venison with warm and cold water on Christmas morning.

  5. Dry the venison thoroughly.

Roast

  1. Encase the venison in a paste of flour and water, wrapped in two layers of thick paper.

  2. Fill a roasting pan one-third full of hot water.

  3. Baste the venison often.

  4. Remove the coverings 45 minutes before serving.

  5. Check the venison's doneness with a fork.

  6. Return the venison to the oven.

  7. Rub the venison with butter.

  8. Dredge the venison with flour.

  9. Repeat butter-basting three to four times until browned.

Serve

  1. Stir brown flour, walnut catsup, currant jelly, and lemon juice into the drippings after the meat is served.

  2. Garnish the venison with alternating slices of lemon and pickled beet-root.

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. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 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. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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
Forms the main meat; long hanging and washing are steps in preparing it for roasting.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and a rich, glossy crust on the meat.
Flour
Dredging coat and paste that help form a protective layer and aid browning.
Brown flour
Thickens the drippings into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to the drippings, balancing the rich, gamey meat.
Walnut catsup
Contributes a savoury, tangy depth of flavour to the drippings.

The step that matters

Check doneness with a fork after removing the coverings. Venison is very lean, so overcooking dries it quickly; testing with a fork helps judge when the meat is tender without losing moisture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, vinegar, butter, flour, walnut, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, vinegar, butter, flour, walnut, lemon. 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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