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Venison Pasty

A baked pastry filled with seasoned venison and mutton, flavored with rape oil, vinegar, port wine, sugar, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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 meat

  1. Rub the venison shoulder with sugar for 2–3 days, then wipe clean.

  2. Soak the mutton loin in equal parts rape oil, vinegar, and port wine for 24 hours.

Assemble

  1. Cut the venison into pieces and layer with fat in a dish.

  2. Season the bottom of the dish with pepper, salt, and butter.

  3. Pack the meat nicely and cover with a crust.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300 °F (150 °C) for 3–4 hours.

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. Vinegar + port winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
Provides the main meat and flavour; sugar curing helps firm and season it before cooking.
Mutton loin
Soaking in oil, vinegar and port tenderises the meat and adds moisture and flavour.
Rape oil
Carries fat into the soaking mixture, adding moisture and richness to the mutton.
Vinegar
Acidity in the soak helps tenderise the mutton fibres.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the soaking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the layers, keeping the meat moist during slow baking.

The step that matters

Baking in a slow oven for 3–4 hours. Low, long heat lets tough connective tissue in the meat break down gradually, making it tender and moist. Too high a temperature tightens the muscle fibres and dries the meat out.

“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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