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Roast Haunch of Venison

Roast venison haunch coated in butter, flour, and water, baked until browned, served with rich brown gravy and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the sinews and dark skin from the venison haunch.

  2. Cover the haunch with buttered paper.

  3. Make a paste of flour and water, and cover the haunch with it. Tie another piece of buttered paper on top to keep the paste in place.

Roast

  1. Roast in front of a brisk fire or bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 4 to 5 hours, depending on size.

  2. About 15 minutes before serving, remove the papers and paste.

  3. Baste the haunch well with butter, dust with flour, and brown quickly.

Serve

  1. Serve with a little rich brown gravy around the haunch and the remainder in a tureen.

  2. Accompany with red 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.

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. Venison + red curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together81 recipes

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

  4. Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together495 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 cut of meat, so its size and fat determine the cooking time.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown during the final basting.
Flour
Forms the protective paste and, dusted on at the end, helps the surface brown.
Rich brown gravy
Adds savoury moisture and depth to the carved meat.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Baste and brown quickly at the end. Removing the papers and paste exposes the meat, so a quick, hot browning with butter and flour is needed to form a good crust without overcooking the interior.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Currantfits about as well
  3. Red currantthe original
  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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