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Venison Pie or Pastry

A savory pie of venison with gravy, pastry, and butter topping.

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

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. Prepare a rich pastry dough.

  2. Roll it out thick.

  3. Line a deep dish with the pastry.

  4. Add the seasoned venison.

  5. Pour the prepared gravy and a glass of port wine over the meat.

  6. Dot the top with bits of butter rolled in flour.

  7. Cover with another layer of thick pastry.

  8. Decorate with leaves and flowers cut from the dough.

Bake

  1. Bake for two or more hours, depending on size.

  2. Brush the top with beaten egg before it finishes baking to achieve a golden brown color.

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 and lean pieces giving both juiciness and flavor.
Pastry dough
Forms the rich, sturdy case and lid that hold the filling during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps the crust brown and taste rich.
Flour
Coats the butter pieces and helps thicken the gravy as the pie bakes.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the gravy poured over the meat.

The step that matters

Simmering the gravy until it forms. Simmering bones and trimmings reduces the liquid and extracts gelatin and flavor. Stopping too early leaves a thin, weak gravy that makes the filling dry or watery.

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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