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A Venison Pasty

A savory pastry filled with seasoned venison, butter, and broth, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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A Venison Pasty

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 ↓

A Venison Pasty

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the venison

  1. Bone the neck and breast of venison and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Cut the breast into 2 or 3 pieces, keeping the fat of the neck intact.

  3. Layer the breast and neck in a pie dish, with the best end of the neck on top.

Make and bake the pasty

  1. Make a thick pastry crust for the sides, bottom, and top of the dish.

  2. Place the venison in the crust, add butter and water, then seal the pasty.

  3. If the venison is not fatty enough, add fat from a loin of mutton soaked in vinegar and red wine for 24 hours on top of the venison before sealing the pasty.

  4. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.

Make the broth

  1. Simmer the bones in 2 quarts of water with mace, onion, crust, and whole pepper until reduced by half.

  2. Strain the broth.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the rich meat and fat that make up the body of the pasty.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, moistening the meat as it bakes.
Pastry crust
Encloses the meat, holding in moisture and forming the sealed baking vessel.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the broth made from the bones.

The step that matters

Seal the pasty before baking. A tight, well-sealed crust traps steam and juices so the venison stays moist during the long bake; gaps let moisture escape and dry the meat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, butter, onion. 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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