Name: A Venison Pastt
Ingredients: 1 breast or shoulder of venison; coarse sea salt; mace; pepper; 1 neck of mutton, diced; 1 large glass of red wine; 1 pound of butter; puff pastry

Why it works: Venison and mutton work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 279 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Venison Pastt

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

Bone the venison and season it well with mace, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Place the venison in a deep pot with the diced mutton and boil over it.
Pour in the red wine and cover with puff pastry.

Bake and assemble

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for two hours.
Transfer the venison to a dish and pour the gravy over it.
Top with one pound of butter.
Roll out puff pastry about half an inch thick and place it around the edge of the dish.
Roll out another lid slightly thicker than the edge and place it on top.
Optionally, roll out a thin lid and cut it into shapes to decorate the top.

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.

Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Venison + red winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Red wine + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,599 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,075 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long slow cooking.
Mutton: Adds rich meaty flavour and body to the gravy as it cooks.
Red wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that enriches the dish.
Puff pastry: Forms a flaky, golden crust that browns in the oven and encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for two hours. Two hours at high heat must be enough to make the venison and mutton tender while the pastry bakes crisp and golden. Too little time leaves tough meat, and a pastry lid set on the pot before the meat is ready will not brown properly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, mutton, red wine, butter):

Rosemaryfits better
Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, mutton, red wine, butter. 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.