Venison Pub Pie with Chestnuts and Parsnips

Even though I was the only one who enjoyed this dish I still have to give it a 5. Son says he's just not a fan of pot pies something about the liquid and the crust also it had wine in it and very few dishes with that as an ingredient does he enjoy. Hubby found out it had parsnips in it and wouldn't even taste it. I actually ended up eating the whole thing over several days with a little help from my grand puppy who enjoyed some of the chunks of meat. I've wanted to make this one for awhile now. I just fell in love with the photo on first look and the list of ingredients intrigued me. Thanks to my nephew for supplying me with the venison. I picked up the chestnuts back in the fall near the nursing home where my brother in law is a resident. I put them in the freezer to use in this dish later. I used the tip in the book to cut an x in on the flat side and roast then peel. It worked really well especially with the larger ones. I'm not a big fan of cooked parsnips or maybe I am now since I loved them in this dish. I did omit the celery since neither hubby nor son enjoy the taste. I've never cooked with juniper berries and bought some from Penzey's Spices just for this dish although I did recently use a couple in another recipe. They lent a really nice flavor to the meat. The Pate Brisee topping from page 306 was perfect for the topping. Another tip I enjoyed from this recipe was to tie the spices up in a coffee filter if you didn't have cheesecloth. That worked great.