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Venison Pasty

A savory venison dish encased in crust, stewed with port wine, shallots, onion, herbs, and gravy, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Venison Pasty

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the venison

  1. Rub the venison shoulder with sugar for 2-3 days, then clean it.

  2. Cut the venison into pieces and place in a stewpan with port wine, shallots, onion, bay leaf, parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, and a little gravy.

  3. Cover and stew gently until tender, then remove the meat and bones.

  4. Reduce the gravy, let it cool, and remove the fat.

Assemble the pasty

  1. Line the sides of a dish with crust, leaving the bottom unlined.

  2. Layer the meat in the dish, adding fat between pieces, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Pour in 2 cups of gravy and add a few bits of butter.

  4. Cover with a crust and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 hours.

  5. After baking, use a funnel to pour the remaining hot gravy into the pasty and shake to mix.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Pasty crust
Encloses the filling and forms the baked outer case.

The step that matters

Cooling and skimming the gravy. Reducing the gravy concentrates its flavour, and removing the fat after it cools keeps the filling from becoming greasy. Hot fat would otherwise mix into the gravy and sit on top of the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, port wine, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, port wine, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter. 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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