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Mock Venison Pasty

A pasty filled with seasoned beef that tastes like venison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mock Venison Pasty

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Bone the beef.

  2. Beat the beef well with a rolling pin.

  3. Rub the meat with sugar.

  4. Let the meat sit for 24 hours.

  5. Wipe the meat clean.

  6. Wash the meat with red port.

Season and assemble

  1. Season the meat with pepper, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Lay the meat in the crust.

  3. Cover the meat with clarified butter.

  4. Add the top crust.

Bake and make gravy

  1. Bake as you would venison.

  2. Place bones in the oven with enough water to cover them to make gravy.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the pasty and becomes tender and sliceable as it cooks.
Moist sugar
Rubbed into the meat to add sweetness and help the surface brown.
Red port
Adds depth and a fruity, slightly sweet aroma to the meat.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and richness, helping keep the meat moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Resting the sugar-rubbed meat for 24 hours. The 24-hour rest gives the sugar and seasonings time to work into the meat. Shortening or skipping the rest leaves the flavour mostly on the surface, so the finished pasty tastes less even.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, 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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