Wild Venison and Root Vegetable Pasties
Hand-crimped pasties filled with cooked wild venison mince, potato and swede for a Boxing Day lunch.
- Prep
- 35 min
- Cook
- 1 hr 25 min
- Total
- 2 hrs
- Serves
- 6
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Species: Muntjac, Chinese Water Deer, Roe Deer, Fallow Deer, Red Deer
Ingredients
- 500 g wild venison mince
- 15 ml rapeseed oil
- 150 g onion, finely diced
- 250 g potato, cut into 1 cm cubes
- 200 g swede, cut into 1 cm cubes
- 150 ml low-salt beef stock
- 10 g tomato purée
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 600 g shortcrust pastry
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 g fine salt
- 1 g ground black pepper
The cut for this recipe
Wild Venison Mince
Method
Heat the oil in a sauté pan and soften the onion for 5 minutes. Add the mince and cook for 7 minutes, breaking it up until browned with no pink.
Add the potato, swede, stock, tomato purée, thyme, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 15–20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Uncover briefly to evaporate excess liquid. Check the filling reaches 70°C for 2 minutes and is piping hot throughout.
Spread the filling in a shallow dish for 15 minutes until it stops steaming. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200°C, or 180°C fan, and roll the pastry into six 18 cm circles.
Divide the filling between the circles, keeping a 2 cm border. Brush the edge with egg, fold each circle over and press to seal. Crimp the edges firmly.
Transfer to a lined tray, brush with egg and cut a small steam slit in each. Bake for 25–30 minutes until golden, checking that the filling is piping hot in the centre.
Cool on a rack for 5 minutes before serving. If keeping for later, cool and refrigerate promptly rather than leaving them on the tray for hours.
Storage
Cool baked pastries in shallow portions and refrigerate within 1–2 hours at 5°C or below. Eat within 48 hours. Freeze promptly for up to 3 months for best quality, thaw in the fridge and use within 24 hours. Reheat the finished pastries only once until piping hot throughout. The brief cooling before the first bake is part of making the recipe; if you instead use a separately chilled, previously cooked filling, that bake counts as its one reheating and the finished pastries should not be reheated again.
