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A Good Common English Game Pie

A savory pie filled with venison, hare, forcemeat, and spices, baked in a short crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 meats

  1. Remove the flesh from the best end of the neck of venison and trim it to fit the dish.

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

  3. Cut the hare into joints.

  4. Bone the back and thighs of the hare.

Make the filling

  1. Fill the hare joints with forcemeat No. 1.

  2. Add extra butter, minced shallots, and chopped liver to the forcemeat.

  3. Line the dish with a rich short crust.

  4. Place the venison in the center of the crust.

  5. Arrange the hare around the venison.

  6. Fill any gaps with more forcemeat.

  7. Add a few spoonfuls of well-jellied gravy.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pie securely.

  2. Decorate the pie if desired.

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

  4. Use the remnants and bones of the hare and venison to make soup or gravy.

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 neck
Forms the dense, meaty centre of the pie and holds its shape when cooked.
Hare
Adds rich, gamey meat flavour and firm texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the forcemeat and gives it a tender, moist texture.
All-purpose flour
Builds the structure of the short crust that encloses the filling.
Forcemeat
Binds and moistens the meat, filling gaps and adding savoury richness.
Well-jellied gravy
Adds moisture and body that sets as the pie cools, keeping the filling juicy.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. The crust must be sealed securely so steam and juices stay inside, keeping the meat moist; a long bake at a well-heated oven lets the large cuts cook through.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, mace, nutmeg, butter, liver, flour):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

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