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Venison Pastry

A pastry filled with venison, beef suet, salt, pepper, and topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a dish with pie crust.

Assemble

  1. Place a layer of finely chopped beef suet in the bottom of the dish.

  2. Add the pieces of venison on top of the suet.

  3. Season the venison with salt and pepper.

  4. Dot the top with butter.

  5. Cover with another layer of pie crust and bake until golden.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Venison + beeftop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Venison
Provides the main meat filling and its savoury, rich flavour.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the meat moist and carries flavour during baking.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that encloses the filling and browns to a golden finish.
Butter
Adds fat to the top crust, promoting browning and a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Cover with another layer of pie crust and bake until golden. The top crust must be sealed so steam stays in and the meat cooks through without drying. Baking until golden shows the crust has browned and set, but the meat inside needs to be cooked fully, which the record does not give a time for.

“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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