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Venison Pasty

A pastry shell filled with seasoned venison and onions, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Venison Pasty

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare the pastry and line a pie dish.

  3. Chop the venison and onions finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, melt butter and sauté the onions until translucent.

  2. Add the venison, season with salt and pepper, and cook until browned.

  3. Fill the pastry with the venison mixture and cover with another layer of pastry.

  4. Seal the edges and make a few slits on top for steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Venison + oniontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together401 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the main meat filling, which browns to add savoury flavour and body.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and bakes into a crisp, golden case that holds the pie together.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding depth to the savoury filling.
Butter
Carries the onions in the pan and adds richness and browning flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the venison. If the meat is crowded or the pan is not hot enough, it steams instead of browning, producing grey meat with a flatter, less savoury flavour. Cook in batches over steady heat so the surface browns.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, 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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