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Venison Pasty

A savory meat pie made with venison, onions, spices, and a pastry crust, baked and served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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. Cut the venison into 2-inch square pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a stew pan.

  3. Add Port Wine, sliced onions or shallots, pepper, salt, mace, allspice, and enough veal broth to cover the meat.

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

Make the gravy

  1. Place the trimmings in another saucepan.

  2. Cover the trimmings with water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Remove the pieces for the pasty.

  5. Place the pieces in a deep dish with a little of their cooking liquid to cool.

  6. Add the remaining liquid to the bones and trimmings.

  7. Boil until the pasty is ready.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the pasty with prepared paste.

  2. Decorate the top.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Before serving, pour in a sauce made from the strained and skimmed gravy.

  2. Add pepper, salt, 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. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 through slow, low-heat cooking.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the meat and the finished sauce.
Onions or shallots
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Veal broth
Moistens the meat and builds the body of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it coats the meat.
Butter
Enriches the thickened sauce, adding richness and smooth texture.

The step that matters

Cook the venison over low heat until three-quarters done. Gentle heat breaks down connective tissue in tough cuts slowly, keeping the meat moist. High heat tightens the proteins and dries it out, so the meat turns tough before the pasty bakes.

Swap the mace

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

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

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