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Roast Venison

Roast venison with bacon or lard, flour, salt, pepper, and water, baked until browned and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Roast Venison

Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. If the venison roast lacks fat, cover it with lard or slices of salt pork or bacon.

  2. Dredge the roast with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  3. Place the roast in a roasting tray and pour a little boiling water around it.

Roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and roast until the meat is nicely browned.

  2. Lower the heat to 300°F (150°C) and cook slowly, basting often with the drippings.

  3. Cook until done to your preference, making a brown gravy as you would for any other roast.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Venison + porktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together955 recipes

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

Pork and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 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 roast
Is the main meat; its lean body benefits from added fat and slow cooking to stay moist.
Lard or salt pork or bacon
Adds fat that bastes the lean venison, keeping it moist and flavourful during roasting.
Flour
Coats the surface, helping it brown and thickening the drippings for the gravy.

The step that matters

Lower the heat to 300°F (150°C) and cook slowly. Lean venison dries out and toughens at high heat. Slow cooking with frequent basting lets the connective tissue soften while the drippings keep the surface moist.

“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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