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Venison Pasty

A venison shoulder is slow‑cooked with sugar, oil, vinegar, port wine, gravy, salt, and pepper in a stone jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Venison Pasty

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the venison

  1. Rub the venison shoulder with sugar for 2-3 days.

  2. Wipe the meat clean from sugar and wine.

Cook

  1. Season and beat the meat, then cut into large pieces.

  2. Place the meat in a stone jar and pour plain drawn-beef gravy over it.

  3. Lay the bones on top and set the jar in a bain-marie.

  4. Simmer 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

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

  4. Port wine + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  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
Main protein; its connective tissue softens into gelatin during long, slow cooking, giving a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and flavour to the meat during the rubbed rest before cooking.
Drawn-beef gravy
Provides moisture and a rich savoury body that keeps the meat from drying as it cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. The tough collagen in venison shoulder turns into tender gelatin only with long, low, gentle heat. A rolling boil tightens and dries the meat fibres, so the bain-marie should stay at a slow simmer for the full 3-4 hours.

“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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