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A Good Common English Game Pie

A savory pie filled with venison, hare, forcemeat, and gravy, wrapped in short crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Good Common English Game Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the flesh from the upper side of the venison and trim it to fit the dish.

  2. Rub the venison with a mixture of coarse sea salt, cayenne, ground mace, and ground nutmeg.

  3. Cut the hare into joints.

  4. Bone the back and thighs of the hare.

  5. Fill the hare joints with forcemeat.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the dish with short crust pastry.

  2. Place the venison in the center.

  3. Arrange the hare around the venison.

  4. Fill any gaps with more forcemeat.

  5. Add a few spoons of well-jellied gravy.

  6. Securely fasten the cover.

  7. Optionally ornament the cover.

Bake

  1. Bake the pie for 2 hours in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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 main meat and rich, savoury flavour of the pie.
Hare
Adds a gamey flavour and tender meat that cooks inside the pastry.
Forcemeat
Fills the gaps around the meat, keeping it moist and adding richness as it cooks.
Short crust pastry
Forms the sealed case that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Well-jellied gravy
Adds moisture that sets to a jelly as the pie cools, keeping the meat moist.

The step that matters

Securely fasten the cover. A tight seal keeps moisture and aroma inside the pie so the meat cooks gently in its own juices rather than drying out during the two-hour bake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, nutmeg, butter, shallot, liver, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, nutmeg, butter, shallot, liver, 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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