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To Roast Venison

A method for roasting venison with salt, clarified fat, flour, and port wine, served with red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and red currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

To Roast Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the venison dry and sprinkle it with coarse sea salt.

  2. Cover the venison with writing paper rubbed with clarified fat.

  3. Make a thick paste of flour and water, and tie it around the venison with pack thread and white kitchen paper.

Roast

  1. Set the venison before a strong fire and baste it continuously until nearly done.

  2. Remove the paper and paste, then draw the venison closer to the fire.

  3. Dredge the venison with flour and continue basting until it is lightly browned and slightly undercooked.

  4. Roast a large haunch for 3 to 4 hours and a small one for about 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with the knuckle, garnished with a fringe of white paper, and with gravy and red currant jelly, either cold or melted in port wine.

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. Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

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

  3. Venison + red curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together81 recipes

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

  4. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + port winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,167 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it stays moist and lean.
Flour
Forms a protective paste and a dredge that helps the surface brown.
Clarified fat
Adds fat to the paper covering, helping the surface brown without burning.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness that balances the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Remove the paper and paste, then draw the venison closer to the fire.. Once the protective paper and paste come off, the surface is exposed and can scorch quickly, so the heat must be adjusted to brown it evenly without overcooking the interior, which should stay slightly undercooked.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Currantfits about as well
  2. Red currantthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, flour, port wine. 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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