Name: To Make a Venison-Pasiy
Ingredients: 1 neck or breast of venison; coarse sea salt; black pepper; ½ pound of butter; ¼ cup of water; puff pastry; gravy made from bones; 1 glass of red wine; optional: fat from a loin of mutton, steeped in rape vinegar and red wine for 24 hours

Why it works: Red wine and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 575 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

To Make a Venison-Pasiy

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the venison

Bone the venison.
Season it with salt and pepper.
Cut the venison into slices.
Layer the fat on top.

Assemble the pastry

Prepare puff pastry and line a dish with it.
Place the venison in the pastry.
Add butter and water.
Cover the top with a thick crust.
Seal the edges well.

Bake and finish

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for two hours or longer if the piece is large.
Make gravy from the bones.
Add red wine to the gravy.
Pour the hot gravy into the 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.

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.

Red wine + vinegartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together575 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Venison + red winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,599 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 during the long, slow bake.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that keeps the meat moist and flavorful.
Puff pastry: Forms a flaky, crisp crust that encloses and browns around the meat.
Red wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Seal the edges well. A tight seal keeps steam and juices inside the pastry during the long bake, so the meat stays moist and the gravy poured in later is not lost.

“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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To Make a Venison-Pasiy