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Venison Pie or Pastry

A savory pie filled with stewed venison and gravy, topped with pastry and butter.

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 the bones and trimmings in a stewpan with water or veal broth to cover.

  3. Season the stew with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Simmer the stew until a good gravy is formed.

  5. Strain the gravy.

Assemble the pie

  1. Make a rich pastry.

  2. Roll the pastry out thick.

  3. Line a deep dish with the pastry.

  4. Add the seasoned meat to the dish.

  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 the pie with a thick lid of pastry.

  8. Decorate the pastry lid with leaves and flowers using a tin cutter.

Bake

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

  2. Pull the pie forward in the oven.

  3. Brush the top with beaten egg.

  4. Return the pie 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 and lean pieces giving both flavour and tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and helps bind the rich pastry structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pastry tender and flavourful.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Pastry
Forms the structural case and lid that hold the filling together.

The step that matters

Simmer the stew until a good gravy is formed. Long simmering of bones and trimmings extracts collagen and flavour into the liquid, which sets into a rich gravy; stopping early leaves it thin and weak.

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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