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Venison Pasty (Shoulder boned makes a good)
761. A shoulder boned makes a good pasty; but it must be beaten and seasoned, and the want of fat supplied by that of a fine well-hung loin of mutton, steeped twenty-four hours in equal parts of rape, vinegar, and port. The shoulder being sinewy, it will be of advantage to rub it well with sugar for two or three days; and, when to be used, wipe it perfectly clean from it and the wine. 762. To Prepare Venison for Pasty. - Take the bones out, then season and beat the meat; lay it into a stone jar in large pieces, pour upon it some plain drawn-beef gravy, but not a strong one; lay the bones on the top, then set the jar in a bain-marie, or a saucepan of water over the fire, simmer three or four hours, then leave it in a cold place till next day. Remove the cake of fat, lay the meat in handsome pieces on the dish; if not sufficiently seasoned, add more pepper, salt, or pimento, as necessary. Put some of the gravy, and keep the remainder for the time of serving. If the venison be thus prepared, it will not require so much time to bake, or such a very thick crust as is usual, and by which the under part is seldom done through. A mistake used to prevail, that venison could not be baked too much; but, as above directed, three or four hours in a slow oven will be quite sufficient to make it tender, and the flavour will be preserved. Either in a shoulder or side, the meat must be cut in pieces, and laid with fat between, that it may be proportioned to each person without P breaking up the pasty to find it. Lay some pepper and salt at the bottom of the dish, and some butter; then the meat nicely packed, that it may be sufficiently done, but not to lie hollow, or it will harden at the edges. The venison bones should be boiled with some fine old mutton; of this gravy put half a pint cold into the dish, then lay butter on the venison, and cover as well as line the sides of the dish with a thick crust of puff paste, but do not put one under the meat. Keep the remainder of the gravy till the pasty comes from the oven; put it into the middle by a funnel, quite hot, and shake the dish to mix well. It should be seasoned with pepper and salt.
Two linked entries: a note on making a pasty from the cheaper boned shoulder, and the fuller method of pre-cooking the venison before it ever goes under a crust. The second is the important one.
- The hinge: cook the meat firstThe whole point of entry 762 is that the venison is simmered tender in gravy a day ahead, chilled, then baked only long enough to cook the pastry. Skip that step and you are back to the old fault the writer complains of, a brick-thick crust with underdone meat beneath it.
- Slow ovenThe tenderising stage is a simmer in a bain-marie or pan of water, not an oven; if you use an oven instead, keep it low, around 300F. The book's own 'slow oven' is for the baking, and it says only that pre-cooked venison needs less time and a thinner crust than usual -- no time or temperature is given, so bake the assembled pasty for as long as the puff paste wants and no longer, with the reserved gravy poured in hot afterwards.
- Rape vinegarRape -- The recipe lists three separate equal parts: rape, vinegar, and port. Rape here is the pressed grape residue used in vinegar-making, giving a sharp, cheap sourness; a decent red wine vinegar is the usual modern stand-in for it.
- PimentoNot sweet pepper. In this period pimento means allspice berries, ground or bruised. Use it sparingly with the pepper and salt.
- Sugar rub, and cold storageRubbing the sinewy shoulder with sugar for two or three days is a tenderising trick rather than a cure; do not rely on it to preserve anything. Both the sugar rub and the twenty-four-hour steeping belong in the refrigerator, in a covered non-reactive dish, not in a larder.
- Bain-marie and stone jarA deep ovenproof or flameproof dish set in a wider pan of simmering water. A heavy lidded casserole in a 300F oven does the same job with less watching.
- Half a pint of gravyBy the measures of the period that is roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, about a cup to a cup and a quarter. The gravy is drawn from the venison bones simmered with a piece of mutton or lamb; a well-made lamb or beef stock is the modern equivalent.
- Crust on top and sides onlyLine the sides of the dish and cover the top with puff pastry, but leave the base bare. Pack the meat with fat between the pieces and no hollow space, or the edges dry out.
- Farmed venison is leanerSupermarket venison carries almost no fat and has not been hung for weeks. The added mutton or lamb fat is not optional decoration here; without it the filling will be dry and grainy.
- YieldA boned shoulder of about 3-4 lb with its pastry serves eight to ten as a main course.
Venison pasty was a status dish rather than a bought one: English deer were park property, and venison generally reached a household as a gift from a landowning friend rather than through a market, often arriving after a long hang and needing rescue. That helps explain the shape of these instructions, which are largely damage control for meat that is sinewy, dry, and strongly flavoured, hence the sugar rub, the vinegar and port steep, and the mutton fat borrowed from a fatter animal. The thick crust served as a container as much as a pastry, which is why the writer feels obliged to argue against it and against the older belief that venison could not be overbaked. The insistence that the meat be cut and laid with fat between the pieces, so each diner can be served without breaking up the pasty, suggests a table where the dish was carried in whole before it was cut.