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Venison Pasty, Pastry For
Pastry for venison pasty should be good and short, but stiff. For a rich pasty, it may be made in the proportion of ten ounces of butter to one pound of flour, and worked to a smooth, stiff paste with two eggs and a little lukewarm water. For an ordinary pasty, rub three or four ounces of butter into a pound of flour, and work it to a smooth stiff paste with a beaten egg and a little lukewarm water.
This is a component recipe — the crust only — and the whole point is in the words "short, but stiff." It has to eat like rich shortcrust while standing up to hours in the oven over a deep filling of venison and gravy.
- The proportions in gramsRich version: 1 lb flour (450 g) to 10 oz butter (280 g), bound with 2 eggs and a little lukewarm water. Plain version: 1 lb flour (450 g) to 3–4 oz butter (85–115 g) and 1 beaten egg. Use plain/all-purpose flour, not a soft pastry flour, since the paste needs some strength.
- Why lukewarm water, not icedModern shortcrust doctrine says keep everything cold. Here the paste is meant to be pliable enough to roll thick and drape over a mounded filling without cracking, so slightly warm liquid is correct. Add it a spoonful at a time — with two eggs already in, the rich version needs very little.
- "Stiff" means stiffThe dough should be noticeably firmer and drier than a modern tart pastry — closer to a firm pasta dough in feel. A slack paste slumps into the gravy and goes sodden underneath.
- Rest before rollingCassell's does not mention it, but 30 minutes wrapped in the refrigerator makes the high-butter version far easier to handle and reduces shrinkage over a deep filling.
- Thickness and lidA pasty crust is rolled thick — about 1 cm (3/8 in) — not the 3 mm of a tart. Cut a steam vent in the centre and keep the trimmings: pastry leaves and scrolls around the hole are a common finish, though this recipe says nothing about decoration.
- OvenNo temperature is given because the crust is baked with its filling. For a venison pasty, start hot, 220°C/425°F, for 15–20 minutes to set the pastry, then drop to 160°C/325°F for the long braise; cover the crust with foil or paper once it has coloured.
- YieldThe 1 lb flour quantity gives roughly 850 g of paste for the rich version — enough to line and lid a deep dish of about 25 cm (10 in).
The venison pasty is one of the oldest surviving forms of English meat pie, and for centuries its crust was less a pleasure than a container: medieval and Tudor "coffin" pastry was made stiff enough to be baked free-standing, hold a great deal of gravy, and travel as a gift. Venison was largely outside the legal butchers' trade for much of that period "it it came from a deer park, which meant it came from someone with land, so a pasty sent to a friend's house carried a good deal of social weight, and Pepys records receiving and eating them with obvious satisfaction. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the mid-to-later 1870s the crust had become genuinely edible " butter-rich and short " but the older requirement lingers in the instruction that it be "stiff," because it still had to survive hours in the oven above a slow-cooking joint. The two grades given here, rich and ordinary, are typical of the book's approach: the same dish costed for two different households.