Skip to main content
Main

Venison and Hare Pie

A savory pie filled with venison, hare, veal forcemeat, and topped with jellied gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Venison and Hare Pie

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 meats

  1. Ensure the venison and hare are well kept.

  2. Cut the venison to the length of the pie dish and season with salt, cayenne, and pounded mace.

  3. Divide the hare into serving pieces, remove the bones, and fill cavities with veal forcemeat.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the edges of a pie dish with pastry.

  2. Place the venison in the center and arrange the hare pieces around it.

  3. Fill empty spaces with forcemeat and top with jellied gravy.

  4. Cover the pie and decorate as desired.

  5. Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 2 hours.

Make and add the gravy

  1. For additional gravy, simmer hare and venison bones with ham, peppercorns, cloves, salt, and enough stock or water to cover.

  2. Cool the gravy, remove fat, and pour into the pie through a strainer before serving.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Venison + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace 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
Forms the main meat of the pie and carries its rich, gamey flavour.
Hare
Adds dense, rich meat that complements the venison and fills the pie.
Veal forcemeat
Fills the gaps and cavities, keeping the meat moist and adding a tender, soft texture.
Pastry
Forms the structural crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Jellied gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness to the filling as it melts into the meat.

The step that matters

Bake at a well-heated oven temperature. Starting in a properly preheated oven sets the pastry quickly so it crisps and holds its shape, while the long bake gives the dense venison and hare time to become tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, veal, ham, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, veal, ham, clove. 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesRoast VenisonRoast Venison20 recipesVenison PastyVenison Pasty7 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes