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Saddle or Haunch of Venison

If venison is to be kept for a week before cooking, wash it with milk and water, then dry thoroughly to remove all moisture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Saddle or Haunch of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the venison in warm water and rub it with fresh butter or lard.

  2. Cover the fat with two layers of buttered paper tied with soaked packthread to prevent burning.

  3. For better results, cover the first sheets of paper with a thick paste made from flour and water, then secure with a second layer of paper.

  4. Preheat the oven to a steady, strong heat.

  5. Place some butter in the dripping pan and baste the meat frequently.

  6. If wrapped in paste, roast for at least five hours.

  7. Half an hour before serving, carefully remove the coverings, baste with fresh butter, and lightly dredge with flour.

  8. Serve with fringed white paper around the bone and its own well-skinned gravy.

  9. Accompany with currant jelly and ensure plates are warm.

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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, butter, flour, ginger, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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