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Venisox Pasty

A savory pasty filled with stewed venison, broth, and spices, topped with a buttery egg paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Venisox Pasty

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a stew pan, combine the venison pieces and bones with veal broth, red port, chopped onion or shallot, pepper, salt, beaten spices, and lemon juice.

  2. Stew gently until the meat is three-quarters cooked.

  3. Transfer the meat to a deep dish with half of the cooking liquid.

Cover and bake

  1. Let it cool, then cover with a paste made from flour, butter or beef marrow, beaten eggs, and salt.

  2. Bake until the venison is tender.

  3. Three-quarters of an hour before serving, strain and thicken the remaining cooking liquid, then pour it into the pasty.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Venison + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and butter 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, which becomes tender through slow stewing and baking.
Veal broth
Supplies the liquid that cooks the meat and later forms the thickened sauce.
Red port
Adds sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid, flavouring the meat and sauce.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that encloses the filling as it bakes.
Butter or beef marrow
Adds fat to the paste, giving it richness and a tender, flaky texture.
Eggs
Bind the paste and help it set and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the cooking liquid. The liquid must be strained and thickened before it goes into the pasty; if it stays thin, it will run out and make the filling soggy. Thickening it properly gives a sauce that holds together around the meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, veal, pepper, lemon, flour, butter, egg. 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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