Skip to main content
Main

Baked Saddle of Venison

A roasted venison saddle cooked with salt pork, carrots, onion, bay leaves, cloves, butter, allspice, lemon, and stock.

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

  1. Wash the saddle of venison thoroughly, ensuring no hairs remain.

  2. Lard the saddle with strips of salt pork.

Braise and roast

  1. In a large dripping pan, combine carrots, onion, and salt pork slices, then add bay leaves, cloves, butter, allspice, lemon slices, salt, and pepper.

  2. Place the saddle in the pan and pour in the hot stock.

  3. Cook on the stove for about 15 minutes, basting every 5 minutes.

  4. Transfer to a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake until medium rare, until the blood runs when cut.

Serve

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of venison
Is the main cut of meat, cooked to medium rare for a tender, juicy result.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the lean venison as it cooks.
Stock
Provides liquid in the pan that keeps the meat moist and builds flavor in the drippings.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor to the pan juices.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the pan juices.

The step that matters

Baking to medium rare. Venison is very lean, so overcooking quickly makes it dry and tough. Pulling it from the oven when the meat is still pink in the center keeps it tender and juicy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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