Skip to main content
Main

Venison Pasty

A venison shoulder marinated with sugar, then baked after soaking mutton fat in oil, vinegar, and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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.

Cure the venison

  1. Rub the venison shoulder with sugar for 2-3 days.

  2. Wipe the shoulder clean from sugar and wine before using.

Prepare the fat

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

Cut and bake

  1. Cut the venison into pieces.

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

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
The main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking that breaks down its connective tissue.
Mutton fat
Adds richness and moisture, and carries flavour through the meat.
Rape oil
Acts as a fat that soaks into the meat, adding moisture and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps soften the surface of the meat and brightens flavour.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour during the soak.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture out of the venison during the rub.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until tender. Baking low and slow lets the connective tissue in the shoulder break down, so the meat turns tender rather than dry. Higher heat toughens and dries the meat before that breakdown can happen.

“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