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Venison Pasty

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 Pasty

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Place the bones and trimmings in a saucepan with water or veal broth to cover, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Simmer until a good gravy is formed, then strain it.

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

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

  6. Pour the prepared gravy and two glasses of port or claret over the meat.

  7. Dot the top with bits of butter rolled in flour.

  8. Cover with a thick lid of pastry and decorate with shapes cut from the dough.

  9. Bake for two hours or more, depending on the size.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, veal, nutmeg, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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