casserole

This hearty entree is also known in Ireland as "sailor pie" or "sailor's pie" even though it contains no fish. Presumably it was thought of as being a good hearty dish suitable to give to a man who'd just come in from the sea.

Another version of this pie appears in a series of cookbooks produced by the government of the Irish Republic for young housewives in the 1930's. Because of this, the pie is sometimes known by the name of the then-Irish Taoiseach / prime minister, and referred to as "De Valera Pie."

The oldest versions of the dish use plain pastry or puff pastry tops for the pie. This one follows the newer tradition of using a soda bread crust.

The recipe...

Deer have been present in Ireland since ancient times, and have been a favorite food for hundreds if not thousands of years (prehistoric sites show that the most ancient Irish ate venison regularly, if not as often as the pork they largely preferred).

Local poets of the first millennium spend a surprising amount of time singing the praises of Irish venison, which they seem to have preferred spit-roasted in times when the grazing was good and the deer were plump. Today, though, venison is valued in Ireland (as elsewhere) for its leanness when compared to many other meats. Most supermarkets across Ireland carry local venison, as deer are plentiful here, both farmed and wild. Phoenix Park in Dublin, the biggest in-city park in Europe, has its own herd of wild deer which have to be culled each season to keep their population from exploding, and their venison disappears from the city's butcher shops as quickly as it turns up.

This recipe's approach to venison deals with the meat's only downside -- its relative dryness -- and pairs it superbly with that most Irish of drinks, stout.