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Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison served with gravy and a currant jelly‑port wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the haunch in lukewarm milk and water, then dry it thoroughly.

  2. Cover the haunch with a sheet of buttered white paper.

  3. Make a coarse paste of flour and water, about ¼ inch thick.

  4. Cover the paper with the paste.

  5. Tie on another layer of buttered white paper with packthread.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast the haunch over a substantial fire, basting constantly with beef dripping.

  2. Remove the paste.

  3. Baste the haunch with butter.

  4. Lightly dredge the haunch with flour until it froths and turns light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with its own gravy, additional brown gravy, and a sauce of currant jelly mixed with port wine and sugar.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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 large cut of meat that is roasted and forms the body of the dish.
Flour
Forms a paste that shields the meat, and dredging browns and crisps the surface.
Beef dripping
Fat that is basted over the meat, adding moisture and promoting browning.
Butter
Fat brushed over the meat and paper, adding richness and helping the surface brown.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity to the accompanying sauce.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the sauce served with the roast.

The step that matters

Basting constantly over a strong fire. Venison is very lean, so frequent basting with fat keeps the surface from drying out while the heat browns it. Letting the basting lapse can leave the meat dry and tough.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, milk, butter, flour, beef, port wine, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, milk, butter, flour, beef, port wine, sugar. 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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