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Roast Leg of Venison

A leg of venison is coated in a flour and water paste, roasted, basted with butter and gravy, then finished with butter, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 Leg of Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove the dry skin from the venison and wipe it with a damp towel.

  2. Make a paste with the flour and cold water.

  3. Cover the venison with this paste.

Roast

  1. Roast in a very hot oven (400°F / 200°C) or before a hot fire.

  2. Baste frequently with the gravy from the pan as the paste browns.

  3. After 1.5 hours, remove the paste.

  4. Cover the meat with butter.

  5. Dredge the meat with flour.

  6. Cook for an additional hour, basting frequently with butter, salt, and flour.

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. Flour + buttertop 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 + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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 leg
Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and served.
Flour
Forms the protective paste crust that shields the meat and browns during roasting.
Cold water
Mixes with the flour to form the paste that encloses the meat.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the meat and helps the surface brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Basting with the pan gravy as the paste browns. Spooning pan juices over the meat keeps its surface moist while the paste and meat brown, so the crust does not dry out or scorch before the venison 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.

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