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Venison Pasty to Be Served Hot

A savory pasty filled with braised venison and port wine, topped with pastry and baked.

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 to Be Served Hot

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 the venison

  1. Stew the breast pieces in mutton broth or water until well cooked.

  2. Stew the neck cutlets in the venison liquor until done.

  3. Let the neck cutlets cool in the liquid.

Assemble the pasty

  1. Line a deep pudding dish with thick pastry around the edges.

  2. Place the venison cutlets in the dish with some of the gravy.

  3. Add port wine to the dish.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. Egg the bottom pastry.

  6. Cover with a thick layer of top pastry, trimming as needed.

  7. Egg the top pastry.

  8. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for a little over an hour.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Reduce the remaining gravy with half a bottle of port wine until strong.

  2. Mix in cayenne pepper.

  3. Pour the gravy into the pasty before serving.

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

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Venison breast
Stewing until well cooked makes the meat tender and gives the braising liquid savory depth.
Venison neck
Slow stewing breaks down connective tissue, leaving the cutlets tender and moist.
Puff or short pastry
Forms a sturdy, flaky shell that holds the filling and the hot gravy together.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth, and reducing it concentrates its flavour in the gravy.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the pastry promotes browning and a glossy golden finish.

The step that matters

Reduce the remaining gravy with port until strong. Reducing concentrates the liquid by evaporating water, so the sauce becomes rich and intensely flavoured. Under-reduced gravy will taste thin when poured over the baked pasty.

“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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