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Roast Venison

A roasted haunch of venison wrapped in paper, basted with butter, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Roast Venison

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wrap the haunch in two or three sheets of stout paper and secure with twine.

  2. Place the wrapped haunch over a clear fire.

  3. Baste the paper with butter or clarified dripping.

Roast

  1. Roast for 3.5 to 4.5 hours, depending on weight and quality.

  2. For doe venison, reduce roasting time by 30 minutes.

  3. Twenty minutes before done, remove the paper.

  4. Twenty minutes before done, paste.

  5. Baste the meat with butter and lightly dredge with flour.

  6. Allow to brown lightly and serve hot with unflavoured gravy and currant jelly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

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 dish; its long roasting time makes it tender.
Butter or clarified dripping
Adds fat that moistens the meat and helps it brown.
Flour
Dredged over the meat to help it form a light browned crust.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Remove the paper twenty minutes before done. The paper shields the meat while it cooks slowly; removing it near the end lets the surface dry and brown. Removing it too early can leave the outside pale, and too late can leave it under-browned.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits less well

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