Skip to main content
Main

Baked Saddle of Venison

A large venison saddle is larded with salt pork, braised with vegetables and spices, then baked until medium rare.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Saddle of 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 the saddle

  1. Wash the saddle carefully, ensuring no hairs remain.

  2. Lard the saddle with salt pork strips. Place two rows of salt pork on each side of the saddle.

Make the braise

  1. In a large dripping pan, combine sliced carrots, onion, and salt pork. Add bay leaves, cloves, allspice, lemon slices, salt, and pepper. Place the saddle in the pan.

  2. Add boiling hot stock and butter. Boil on the stove for about 15 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the saddle to a hot oven at 400°F (200°C). Bake, basting every 5 minutes, until medium rare, so the blood runs when cut.

  2. Serve with jelly or a wine sauce.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison saddle
Forms the main body of the roast, providing the meat that is cooked to medium rare.
Salt pork
Adds fat and salty flavour, and its fat bastes the lean venison as it cooks.
Stock
Provides moisture and liquid in the pan, helping keep the meat from drying out.
Carrots
Release sweetness and moisture into the braising liquid, flavouring the pan juices.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness to the pan juices as it softens.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the pan liquid, supporting browning and a rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Cook to medium rare in the oven. Lean venison dries out and turns tough once overcooked, so checking doneness carefully matters. Basting helps keep the surface moist while the centre cooks gently.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pork, carrot, onion, clove, allspice, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pork, carrot, onion, clove, allspice, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes