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Venison Pie or Pastry

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

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.

  1. Cut the venison into pieces, including fat and lean meat.

  2. Place the bones and trimmings in a pot with water or veal broth, salt, and pepper. Simmer until a good gravy forms, then strain it.

  3. Prepare a rich pastry dough and roll it out thick.

  4. Line a deep dish with the pastry, then add the seasoned venison.

  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 with a thick layer of pastry and decorate with leaves and flowers cut from the dough.

  8. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for two or more hours, depending on size.

  9. Before finishing, pull the pie forward in the oven and brush with beaten egg, then return it 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

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.

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