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Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison coated in a sweet dripping and flour paste, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the venison

  1. Hang the venison in a dry, airy place for 10 days to 3 weeks, rubbing it dry with a clean cloth morning and night.

  2. Remove the shank and chine bones, strip off the skin, and trim rough pieces.

  3. Mix 3 pounds of sweet dripping, 4 pounds of flour, and 1 quart of bran with hot water to form a stiff paste; let it stand for 1 hour.

  4. Roll the paste out to ½ inch thick and cover the venison completely, ensuring even thickness.

Roast

  1. Hang the venison before a solid fire for 45 minutes.

  2. Roast the venison gradually, basting frequently with dissolved dripping.

  3. Allow 13 minutes per pound, including the paste weight.

  4. Half an hour before serving, split the paste with a knife and remove it.

  5. Dredge the haunch with baked flour and baste with dissolved butter until done.

Serve

  1. Serve the venison on a hot dish with the fat side up.

  2. Pour some gravy into the dish.

  3. Serve the rest in tureens.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

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 cut, whose lean meat is the substance of the roast.
Flour
Combines with dripping and water to form a stiff paste that encases the meat while it cooks.
Sweet dripping
Adds fat that moistens the meat and helps the paste brown during roasting.
Bran
Adds bulk to the stiff paste, helping it hold its shape around the meat.
Butter
Basting fat that adds richness and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Roasting gradually with frequent basting. Venison is very lean, so slow cooking with regular basting keeps the meat moist and prevents the surface from drying out before the centre is cooked through.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, flour, butter, mutton, liver, shallot, carrot. 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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