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Venison Pasty

A savory venison pasty made with stew meat, spices, broth, and a pastry crust, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 and place them in a stew pan.

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

  3. Cook over low heat until three‑quarters done.

Make the gravy

  1. Place the trimmings in another saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil.

  2. Remove the pieces for the pasty and place them in a deep dish with a little of their cooking liquid to cool.

  3. Add the remaining cooking liquid to the bones and trimmings, and boil until the pasty is ready.

Assemble, bake and serve

  1. Cover the pasty with pastry, decorate the top, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

  2. Before serving, pour in a sauce made from the strained and skimmed gravy, adding 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
Forms the main meat filling, which becomes tender through long, gentle cooking.
Port wine
Adds depth and a subtle sweetness to the meat and the finished sauce.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the cooking liquid.
Veal broth
Provides moisture and savoury body that cooks the meat and forms the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy into a sauce with body.
Butter
Enriches the thickened sauce and gives it a smooth, rounded texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the venison only until three-quarters done. Meat that is cooked fully at this stage would be overcooked after the long baking, becoming dry and stringy. Stopping early lets the pasty finish gently in the oven while staying moist and tender.

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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