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Venison Pasty

A savory pie filled with venison, diced game, boiled pork, hard‑boiled eggs, and gravy flavored with port wine and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 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

  1. Follow the directions for Four-and-Twenty Blackbird Pie, cutting the meat into pieces.

  2. Add the diced game, boiled pork, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  2. After baking, fill the pie through the top opening with gravy.

Finish and rest

  1. Add port wine and lemon juice to the gravy before serving.

  2. It is best eaten cold, 1 or 2 days after it is made.

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

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

  3. Venison + porktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Port wine + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the main meaty flavour and chewy texture of the filling.
Boiled pork
Adds fat and moisture so the cooked filling stays tender.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and richness to the filling.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and gravy.
Gravy
Supplies moisture that fills the pie and keeps the meat from drying out.

The step that matters

Filling the pie with gravy after baking. The gravy is added once the pie has baked, so it is not overcooked. As the pie chills, the gravy sets around the meat, which is why the pie is best eaten cold after a day or two.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pork, egg, port wine):

  1. Currantfits better
  2. Red currantfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pork, egg, port wine. 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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