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Venison Pie or Pastry

A savory pie made with venison, gravy, and double pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Venison Pie or Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the gravy

  1. Cut the venison into pieces, including fat and lean meat.

  2. Place bones and trimmings in a pot with water or veal broth, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer until a good gravy forms, then strain.

Assemble the pie

  1. Make a rich pastry and roll it out thick.

  2. Line a deep dish with the pastry, then add the seasoned venison.

  3. Pour in the prepared gravy and a ⅓ cup of port wine.

  4. Dot the top with butter rolled in flour.

  5. Cover with another layer of thick pastry and decorate with leaves and flowers cut from pastry.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for two or more hours, depending on size.

  2. Brush the top with beaten egg before it's done and return to the oven to brown slightly.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the main meat, with fat in the cut keeping the filling moist and flavourful.
Butter
Melts over the top crust, adding richness and helping the pastry brown.
Flour
Thickens the butter and, with the gravy, helps give the filling body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy and filling.
Pastry for pie
Forms the structure that holds the filling and bakes into a crisp, golden shell.

The step that matters

Simmering the gravy until it is good and strong. Long simmering of bones and trimmings extracts gelatin and flavour, which sets the gravy and gives the pie its body. A weak gravy leaves the filling watery and bland after baking.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, veal, nutmeg, port wine, 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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