Skip to main content
Main

Venison Pasty

A slow‑cooked venison and mutton dish with oil, vinegar, port, sugar, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Venison and port wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 239 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. 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 meat

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

  2. Soak the loin of mutton in equal parts rape oil, vinegar, and port for 24 hours.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut the venison into pieces and layer with fat in a dish.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and butter at the bottom of the dish.

  3. Pack the meat tightly to ensure even cooking.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3-4 hours.

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. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + port winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Venison
Forms the main body of the pasty and provides its rich, savoury meat flavour.
Mutton
Adds further meat flavour and substance to the filling.
Rape oil
Supplies fat that carries flavour and helps keep the meat moist.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the soaking mixture, which can help soften the meat's texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the soaking mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping keep the filling moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow. Long, gentle heat gives tough connective tissue in the meat time to break down and become tender. Too much heat or too short a time can leave the meat dry and chewy.

“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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesRoast VenisonRoast Venison20 recipes