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Venison Pasty to Be Served Hot

A baked pastry filled with stewed venison cutlets and gravy, seasoned with Port wine, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and port wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 239 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Venison Pasty to Be Served Hot

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the breast of venison into pieces for gravy.

  2. Stew the pieces with mutton broth or braise and water.

  3. Cut the neck of venison into cutlets, leaving the fat on.

  4. Stew the cutlets in the venison liquor until done.

  5. Let the cutlets sit in the liquor until nearly cold.

Assemble the pasty

  1. Roll out the pastry.

  2. Line the edge of a deep pudding dish with the pastry.

  3. Place the cutlets in the dish with some of the gravy.

  4. Add Port wine.

  5. Sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  6. Egg wash the bottom pastry.

  7. Cover with a thick layer of top pastry.

  8. Trim the pastry.

  9. Egg wash the top pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for a little more than an hour.

  2. Reduce the remaining gravy with half a bottle of Port wine until strong.

  3. Mix in a little cayenne pepper.

  4. Pour the mixture into the pasty just before serving.

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

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

  2. Venison + muttontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Venison + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison breast
Cut into pieces and stewed to make the gravy that flavours the filling.
Venison neck
Cut into cutlets with the fat left on, so the meat stays moist and rich during stewing.
Puff pastry or short pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the gravy as it reduces.
Egg
Egg wash brushed on the pastry helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Reduce the remaining gravy until strong. Reducing the gravy concentrates its flavour and thickens it, so the sauce poured into the pasty is rich rather than watery and does not make the crust soggy.

“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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