Skip to main content
Main

Venison Pasty

A savory pasty filled with stewed venison, onions, spices, and port wine, encased in puff pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 venison

  1. Cut the venison into 2‑inch square pieces.

  2. Crack the bones and place them with the meat trimmings in a pot with salt and pepper.

  3. Stew for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the stock.

Make the gravy

  1. Add the venison to the stock with port, onions, mace, allspice, and butter.

  2. Stew until the meat is half cooked.

  3. Remove the meat and place it in a deep dish.

  4. Pour enough gravy over the meat to cover it.

  5. Mix in flour to thicken.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with puff pastry.

  2. Decorate the top.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for nearly 2 hours.

  4. Add lemon juice and remaining port to the gravy.

  5. Boil.

  6. Pour through a small opening in the crust.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy as it reduces.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the gravy a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and holds together in the pie.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky, golden crust that seals the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, sweet gravy.

The step that matters

Pour the gravy over the meat before covering. The meat is only half cooked when it goes in the dish, so it needs enough hot gravy around it to keep it moist while the pastry bakes. Flour thickens the gravy only when it is stirred in evenly and heated, so a lumpy or thin gravy will leave the filling unset.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, port wine, onion, allspice, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, port wine, onion, allspice, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes