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Venison Pie

A savory pie filled with seasoned venison and gravy, topped with a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 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 filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut the breast and neck of venison into small pieces.

  3. Season the venison with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of ground cloves.

  4. Dredge the seasoned venison pieces with flour.

  5. Place the venison in a pie dish, packing it closely.

  6. Fill the dish with roast venison gravy or a similar gravy.

Bake

  1. Cover the dish with a pie crust.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together955 recipes

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

  5. Venison + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 filling, becoming tender and savory as it cooks through.
Flour
Coats the meat so the gravy thickens and clings to the pieces.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor that keeps the filling from drying out in the oven.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, giving the pie its structure.

The step that matters

Packing the venison in the dish. Packing the meat closely helps it hold its shape and keeps gravy distributed through the pie, so the filling cooks evenly and sets rather than shifting or drying in gaps.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, 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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