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Roast Haunch of Venison

A roasted haunch of venison basted with butter, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Prepare

  1. Wash the haunch of venison lightly in tepid water and dry it thoroughly with a clean, soft cloth.

  2. Cover the fat side with a large sheet of thickly buttered paper.

  3. Make a paste of flour and water about ¾ inch thick and cover the paper with it.

  4. Secure everything with twine and place it in a roasting pan with a little water.

Roast

  1. Ensure the fire is clear and strong; baste the paper with butter or clarified drippings.

  2. Roast the joint for 3 to 4 hours, depending on its weight and quality.

  3. Remove the paste and paper about 20 minutes before it's done, baste the meat with butter, and lightly dredge it with flour.

  4. Let it brown lightly and serve hot with unflavored gravy and 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 + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

  3. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly as a large joint.
Flour
Forms a paste that shields the meat, and a light dredge that helps it brown.
Butter
Basts the paper and meat, adding fat that keeps the surface moist and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Removing the paste and paper about 20 minutes before the end. The paste and paper protect the meat while it cooks. Removing them late lets the surface dry and brown, so timing matters: too early leaves the meat pale, too late can dry or char it.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  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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