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A Venison Pasty

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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A Venison Pasty

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 ↓

A Venison Pasty

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bake or boil the venison in broth for 2 hours.

  2. Cut the meat into pieces.

  3. Season the meat with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, pounded mace, and a little allspice.

  4. Place the seasoned meat into a pastry.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Venison + macetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together204 recipes
  5. Venison + allspicetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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