Skip to main content
Main

To Roast a Haunch of Venison

A method for roasting a haunch of venison with pepper or ginger, flour paste, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Roast a Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Wipe the venison with soft, dry cloths to remove moisture.

  2. Dust the surface with freshly ground pepper or powdered ginger.

  3. Wash the venison lightly with tepid water. Wipe the venison with damp cloths. Dry the venison with clean cloths.

Wrap and roast

  1. Cover the fat side with a large sheet of thickly buttered paper.

  2. Make a paste of flour and water about ¾ inch thick and cover the paper with the paste.

  3. Secure everything with twine.

  4. Place the haunch over a clear fire.

  5. Baste the paper with butter or clarified dripping.

  6. Roast for 3.5 to 4.5 hours, depending on weight and quality. For doe venison, reduce roasting time by 30 minutes.

Finish and brown

  1. Twenty minutes before done, remove the paste and paper.

  2. Baste with butter.

  3. Lightly dredge with flour.

  4. Allow to brown lightly.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together955 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
Forms the main meat; its lean texture is protected by the paste and paper during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the surface, helping it brown and keeping the meat from drying.
Flour
Forms a paste that shields the meat and helps the surface brown when dredged at the end.
Water
Mixed with flour to make the protective paste, which steams the meat under the wrapping.

The step that matters

Remove the paste and paper twenty minutes before done. Removing the wrapping late lets the surface dry and brown. Removing it too early exposes the lean meat to heat and can dry it out before it is cooked through.

“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.

You might also like

Roast VenisonRoast Venison20 recipesVenison PastyVenison Pasty7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes