Venison Pasties

[jackal10]

I've been given some venison, cubed. I think its probably originally shoulder of a roe deer . I have in mind to make some venison pasties, but need a recipe. I want these as working lunch or finger food.

Here I run into trouble. Doing some googling, and looking in my library I get very different results.

When I think of a pastie (the edible sort, not nipple covers), I think of a Cornish pastie, a priddy oggie, usually beef or lamb, with a small amount of meat and lots of potatoes, onions and swede (rutabaga), in a traditional turnover shape.

I thought ah ha, just replace the meat with venison.

Not so. There are a few online recipes with a turnover but where the filling is mostly venison, with a few onions, and the venison is pre-cooked.

Back to the books.

John Farley (1796) and Meg Dods (1826) both describe a venison pasty as a deep dish pie (a covered stew), covered with puff pastry and decorated, In the words of Meg Dods "This is a dish in which ornament is not only allowable, but expected"

Dorothy Hartley (1954) in Good Things in England but without giving a source describes a venison pastry as a a small raised pie, open topped with the top filled with red currant jelly and sprig of sweet gale and eaten cold. " a dozen or so...look very jolly about lunchtime"

So my dilemma

Vegetables or no vegetables?

Pre-cook or not?

Pie shape or pasty shape, or just a covered stew

Help - historical experts - Adam?

[Adam Balic]

Hi Jack-

by a very strange chance I was also interested in cooking these over the last week, so I have being doing some reading on them.

But to start, Ivan Day's site is very useful.

Venison was a prestige dish, so there are many recipes and they are almost continous throught time. Often they were sent to people as gifts, so they had to survive a journey over rough roads intact. Sometimes they were very large indeed (a whole side for instance). The earlier recipes that where intended for storage/transport are often made of rye flour (hot water or just a water, not fat pastry) as this is very tough and cheap.

Early versions were simily the meat bones out, with a few spices and fat added. As they were prestige items they where often highly decorated (see Day's site).Essentially the pastry was a mode of transporting the venison, not a edible whole item. You just wanted a way of transporting large chunks of meat. As fresh is out of the question, this baked meat was the answer. Gradually it evolved into a pie plate dish, like in Dods', bust still highly decorated.

If you want to make a older version then you need to use a lot of fat, either suet or butter. This is what I did. Roll out the pastry, cover in a thick layer of butter, lay on boned, skinned (of the silver stuff), slashed (to counter contraction), spiced, butterflied venison haunch. Then lay on more butter and seal the pastry well. I used hot water paste, about an inch thich. Basically then you put it in a hot oven to seal the pastry, then reduce the temperature right down. What you end up with is a very rich confit of venison.

For more modern versions I have gently braised the meat, added veg etc and put it into a shortcrust pastry, then cooked this. I made a very modern mutton pie this weekend, this was ~19th century in inspiration and was mutton spiced with cinnamon and mace, cooked in a bottle of port and stock. I served this with parsnip chips and a few scraps of puff pastry on the plate to make it a 'pie'.

So there are many variations on the theme to go for.

[Adam Balic]

I should add that the very best venison pie I have had is made by Fletchers of Auchtermuchty. These are a small raised pie (like a scotch pie), made with venison and (I think) some pork (for fat?), spiced with juniper and a few other spices. Excellent stuff.

[sparrowgrass]

Hmm. I spent a long 5 years away up north in Minnesota mining country, and pasties were common lunch fare--practically fast food. I have seen pork, beef, and even chicken pasties, but I don't remember any lamb filling.

Because deer and moose abound in the area, folks up there often make venison pasties.

I would cut the meat into small dice, and add some ground suet (traditional) or pork fat, because the venison is so lean. Salt, of course, but pepper is awfully spicy. I wouldn't precook. I would be really careful to remove all the tough bits from the meat.

The crust for a pasty is pretty sturdy and thicker than crust for a pie--some recipes call for an egg to be added to the dough.

Cubed potatoes, onions, rutabegas (beggies) and carrots, though the carrots are a matter of controversy, and you might find yourself in a an argument with the neighbors over the carrots/no carrots thing.

A Cornish friend said his grandma used to cut an X in the top of the pasty about 5 minutes before it was done, and pour it full of cream. Which sounds most excellent to me, since pasties have no gravy.

Here is the pasty story as I learned it: Cornish miners' wives made pasties for their husbands lunches. They are made with a thick twisted crust, so miners, with their dirty hands, can hold a corner and not get lead dust on their lunch. When the miner finished his pastie, the dirty corner was tossed off into the darkness of the mine to feed the tommyknockers.

Tommyknockers are small troublesome fellows who live underground. If they aren't fed properly, they will hide your tools, or blow your headlamp out.

They like venison pasties just as well as the other types.

Edited October 23, 2006 by sparrowgrass (log)

[jackal10]

Many thanks Adam and everybody. Ivan Day sets a very high standard, far beyond my reach. As will be obvious I'm no pastry chef. I would assume the decorative cases were not eaten.

Here is what I did.

1, Cooked the venison for 24 hours at 75C with half a bottle of port, pepper, salt, garlic, mace. Essentially John Farley's recipe of 1796, but cooked at a lower temperature for a lot longer. Result tender venison. Strained off the juice and reduced to a syrup, added back to the venison

2. Par boiled equal quantities to the venison of cubed swede (rutabaga), potato.

3. Softened in duck fat an equal quantity of chopped onions and some smoked bacon. Some recipes suggest suet, but since I wanted to eat these cold or at most warm I thought a softer fat would eat better. Could have use butter, but duck fat came to hand.

4. Mixed all together with plenty of salt and pepper. This is more like the vegetables flavoured with the venison, cooked so its falling apart...

Rolled out some puff paste (bought I'm ashamed to say), egg washed, and put a couple of spoonfuls in each, turned over, crimped and decorated, egg wash.

Bake at 400F/200C for 20 minutes.

Very delicious, but a lot of work. My modelling of a deer leaves a lot to be desired.

edit: forgot the Mace, such an 18th century spice

Edited October 25, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[Carolyn Tillie]

Stunning, Jack! I can almost taste 'em...

[srhcb]

Very delicious, but a lot of work. My modelling of a deer leaves a lot to be desired.

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You cheated and used bunny meat?

SB

[jackal10]

No - can't you see the antlers?

[Adam Balic]

Hey, nice Jackalope pie.

[jackal10]

Hey, nice Jackalope pie. 

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That must be what it is....

[The Old Foodie]

Hey, nice Jackalope pie. 

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That must be what it is....

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I guess all guesses are correct - (even the joke ones) once upon a time "Venison" meant any sort of game - the OED says:

"The flesh of an animal killed in the chase or by hunting and used as food; formerly applied to the flesh of the deer, boar, hare, rabbit, or other game animal, now almost entirely restricted to the flesh of various species of deer"

I dont know when it started to be applied to deer only. Adam?

Edited October 26, 2006 by The Old Foodie (log)

[Adam Balic]

Not sure. I would have thought that it would have been post-wild boar extinction in the UK (~17th century), but the OED has this : J. MANWOOD Lawes Forest v. (1615) 49 Amongst the common sort of people, nothing is accompted Venison, but the flesh of Red and Fallow Deere.

By this stage I imagine that what wild boar existed were very restricted in numbers and not seen often by the "common" sort of people. Refering to other game meat as vension lingered on for quite a while longer in the not so common sort of folk. Maybe a hangover from the Norman v A-S, Mutton v sheep, Pork v swine, beef v cattle thing. It seems that this distiction between the amimal and its flesh was abandoned or never picked up but the common sort in reference to small game.

So essentially, the only large prestige game left would be deer and their meat - venison.

[sparrowgrass]

I don't think the tommyknockers would even get a crumb of that. Looks absolutely delicious.