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Venison Pie, or Pasty

A baked pie of seasoned venison, stewed with vegetables and spices, encased in a butter‑flour crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 Pie, or Pasty

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the venison

  1. Remove bones from the venison breasts and flatten the meat.

  2. Season the flattened venison with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Roll the seasoned venison tightly and tie with packthread.

Make the stock and braise

  1. In a pot, combine bones, trimmings, carrots, onion, parsley, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns, and allspice.

  2. Stew the mixture until nearly dry.

  3. Add beef or mutton braise and water to the pot.

  4. Simmer gently until the venison trimmings are cooked.

  5. Place the rolled venison in the pot.

  6. Cover the pot with paper.

  7. Stew gently with heat from above and below.

  8. Once cooked, let the venison sit in the liquid until nearly cold.

Assemble and bake

  1. Make a paste with flour and butter, keeping it soft.

  2. Spread the paste thickly around the edge of a dish.

  3. Remove packthread and skin from the venison.

  4. Place the venison in the dish and add some of the gravy.

  5. Cover the venison with the remaining paste.

  6. Trim the edges of the paste.

  7. Make a hole in the top of the paste.

  8. Brush the hole with egg.

  9. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 3 to 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Reduce the stewing liquid until strong.

  2. Pour the reduced liquid into the pie.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison breasts
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Flour
Forms the stiff paste that encases and seals the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the pastry paste.
Egg
Brushed on the paste to give the top a golden browned finish.
Beef or mutton braise
Adds savoury depth and body to the stewing liquid that becomes the gravy.
Bones and trimmings
Release gelatin and flavour into the stock, giving the reduced liquid body.

The step that matters

Let the venison sit in the liquid until nearly cold. Cooling the meat in its own stock lets it stay moist and firm up, so it slices cleanly and does not dry out when handled.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, carrot, parsley, clove, garlic, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, carrot, parsley, clove, garlic, thyme. 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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