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To Roast Venison

A roasted venison served with a sauce of currant jelly, port wine, milk or cream, stock, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and port wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Roast Venison

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Roast

  1. Baste the venison with milk or cream, and continue basting until absorbed.

  2. Add the dripping and baste frequently.

  3. Once cooked, transfer the venison to a hot dish and pour away the fat, leaving sediment in the pan.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add stock, pepper, salt, currant jelly, and port wine to the pan.

  2. Stir over heat until boiling, then strain the sauce over the venison.

  3. Serve very hot with 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. Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  4. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Port wine + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Venison
Is the main meat, which the roasting and basting cook through.
Dripping
Adds fat for basting, which helps the surface brown and stay moist.
Milk or cream
Is brushed on during basting, where it is absorbed and helps the meat brown.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruit acidity that balance the savoury sauce.
Port wine
Adds depth and a little sweetness to the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Boiling and straining the sauce from the pan sediment. The sediment left after pouring off the fat holds the concentrated meat flavour. Stirring over heat until boiling lets the liquids mix with it and thicken slightly, and straining removes solids so the sauce is smooth.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, port wine, milk, pepper):

  1. Red currantfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, port wine, milk, pepper. 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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