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Venison Pasty

A savory pastry filled with stewed venison and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. 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. Rub the venison shoulder with sugar for 2–3 days, then clean it.

  2. Cut the venison into pieces and place in a stewpan with port wine, shallots, onion, bay leaf, parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, and a little gravy.

  3. Cover and stew gently until tender, then remove the meat and bones.

  4. Reduce the gravy, let it cool, and remove the fat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the sides of a dish with crust, leaving the bottom unlined.

  2. Layer the meat in the dish, adding fat between pieces, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Pour in 1 pint of gravy and add bits of butter, then cover with crust.

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

  5. After baking, use a funnel to add hot gravy into the pasty and shake to mix.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Forms the main body of the pasty and becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Shallots
Contribute a mild savoury sweetness that builds the base flavour of the gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and body to the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling as it melts during baking.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Venison is lean and tough, so slow, low-heat stewing is needed to break down connective tissue. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and can leave it dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, port wine, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, port wine, shallot, parsley, thyme, 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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