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Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison served with gravy, currant jelly, and French beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and beans are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the haunch

  1. Wipe the haunch of venison with a clean kitchen cloth.

  2. Spread a sheet of white paper with butter and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  3. Make a paste of flour and water, about ½ inch thick, and cover the haunch with it.

Roast

  1. Roast the haunch for 3.5 to 4 hours, keeping it rather underdone.

  2. Tie the paste on with pack thread and hang the haunch at a distance from a good fire, basting often.

  3. Fifteen minutes before serving, remove the paste, move the meat closer to the fire, and baste with butter.

  4. Dredge the meat with flour to create a frothy appearance.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on a very hot dish.

  2. Cover with a hot cover.

  3. Add gravy sauce and currant jelly sauce in hot sauce tureens.

  4. Accompany with nicely-cooked French beans.

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. Flour + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it stays moist and tender inside.
Flour and water paste
Forms a protective crust that shields the meat from drying out during long roasting.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, helping the surface brown and taste rich.
Flour
Dredging at the end creates a crisp, golden, frothy surface on the meat.

The step that matters

Removing the paste and finishing near the fire. Timing matters: the paste must come off and the meat move closer to the fire about fifteen minutes before serving so the surface browns without overcooking the interior.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, butter, flour, sauce, beans):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, sauce, beans. 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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