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Venison Pasty

A savory venison stew encased in pastry, simmered with port wine, onions, spices, and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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. Bone the venison and trim off all the skin.

  2. Cut it into 2-inch square pieces.

  3. In a stew pan, combine the venison pieces, port wine, sliced onions or shallots, pepper, salt, mace, allspice, and enough veal broth to cover.

  4. Cook over low heat until three-quarters done.

  5. In another saucepan, place the trimmings and cover with water.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Remove the venison pieces for the pasty and place them in a deep dish with a little of their cooking liquid to cool.

  8. Add the remaining cooking liquid to the bones and trimmings and boil until the pasty is ready.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pastry crust as per your preferred recipe and cover the pasty with it, ornamenting the top.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Before serving, pour in a sauce made from the strained and skimmed gravy, adding pepper, salt, ⅓ cup port, lemon juice, and a little flour and butter to thicken.

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. Venison + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the meat that becomes tender and rich during slow, gentle cooking.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the braising liquid and sauce.
Onions or shallots
Add sweetness and aroma that build the savoury base of the cooking liquid.
Flour and butter
Thicken the strained gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Veal broth
Supplies moisture and savoury body to the cooking liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Cooking the venison to three-quarters done. Stopping before full doneness matters because the meat finishes in the oven; cooking it fully here would leave it dry and stringy after baking for two hours.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, port wine, onion, pepper, allspice, veal, 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.

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