Venison Pie - Scottish Venison

In a large casserole pan, begin over a moderate heat and fry the onions, carrot, garlic, bay and rosemary in half the butter until soft and lightly brown. Add the tomato purée and continue cooking for around 10 minutes over a low heat.
Lightly flour the venison pieces with the seasoned flour, turn up the heat in the pan, add the remaining butter and then add the venison, try to get the venison spread out and cook – turning once for around 4 minutes, then add the bones and stir everything round a bit before adding the red wine and cooking for 5 minutes.
Add the mace, then the water, season slightly, bring to a simmer and then reduce the heat. You want this mixture to simmer slowly for around an hour – make sure there is enough water in the pan to just cover everything; if not, add a little boiling water from the kettle to keep things where you want them to be.
Taste the stew and season as required – remove the bones using a stout pair of tongs then pass the mix through a strainer, set over a bowl to remove the solids from the liquids.
Add enough liquid back to the meat to make a nice moist mixture then set the rest aside for serving separately later on. Allow everything to cool a little.

Place everything bar the water in a food processor and use the pulse function to begin to chop the butter into the flour – you do not want breadcrumbs in this instance, but quite obvious chunks of butter in the end dough.
Drizzle in half the water and pulse a couple more times, then the rest and pulse again. The mix should be starting to come together to a dough; if not add a little more water and pulse a couple more times.
Turn this mix out onto a lightly floured surface and work together into a ball using your hands. Using a rolling pin roll the dough out to roughly 4 x its original size and fold the fat short edge into the middle, flip the right edge over the top and roll out again, fold again and then turn through 90 degrees, fold again and then cover, and set aside in the fridge for use later.

Butter your pie dish with the brush – the dish should be just big enough to take all the meat once a pastry layer has been added.Separate your pastry into 2 thirds and 1 third roughly – roll out the two thirds until around the thickness of a pound coin and lay this in the pie dish– it should come easily up the edges and allow a little extra “overhang”
Fill the pastry lined pie dish with the cool meat mixture, trim the pastry round the edge using a knife and add this to the remaining third of pastry – roll all that pastry out to roughly the shape and size of the pie dish and then lay it on top, having first placed the bone in the middle if you have one.
Crimp round the edges with your thumb and forefinger to seal the meat mix inside the pastry, trim any excess if you like or leave it on for extra crust; if using the bone, carefully cut a small cross in the pastry before you lay it on the top, so the bone can push up through the pastry. Eggwash the pastry top using a clean pastry brush and the beaten egg mix, then scatter over a few fennel seeds and some crunchy sea salt and black pepper. The pie can either be baked now or popped in the fridge for a few hours and baked later – don’t leave it for more than a day though as the pastry will absorb the moisture and not only will you get a soggy pie, you will get a dry filling!
Heat your oven to 180 degrees and bake the pie for around 45minutes until the filling is piping hot and the crust golden brown. Enjoy.