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Venison Pasty, to Keep for Some Time

A baked venison pasty with a pastry crust, seasoned with pepper, salt, optional nutmeg, and served with strong gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Venison Pasty, to Keep for Some Time

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the venison with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, if desired.

  3. Place the venison in a baking dish, add the butter, and cover with a coarse paste made from flour and water.

Bake and store

  1. Bake for 2 hours in the oven and store in a cool, dry place.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, remove the crust and line the dish with good pastry.

  2. Pour in a small amount of strong gravy, cover with pastry, and bake until the crust is firm, about 1 hour.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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
Forms the main filling, becoming tender through slow, covered baking.
Flour
Forms the coarse paste crust that seals in moisture while the meat cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the meat and helps keep it moist as it bakes.
Strong gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth to the filling under the final pastry.

The step that matters

Sealing the crust and baking slowly. The coarse paste crust traps steam and heat around the venison, so the long, gentle bake cooks the meat through while keeping it moist. A poorly sealed crust lets moisture escape and can leave the meat dry or unevenly cooked.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, 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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