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Chopped Meat Pie

A savory pie made with finely chopped mutton or veal, bacon, lettuce, peas, onion, gravy, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Chopped Meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove fat and skin from the meat, then chop the meat finely.

  2. Add minced bacon or salt pork, season with pepper and salt.

Stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the meat mixture with gravy and butter.

  2. Stir in chopped lettuces, peas, and onion.

  3. Heat over gentle fire until hot, then cover and let stew for 3 hours.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton or veal
Forms the main body of the pie and gives it its meaty flavour and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the stewed meat a smooth, moist texture.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the meat stews rather than dries out.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a tender, fresh texture to the stew.
Young lettuces
Soften during stewing and add moisture and a mild, green flavour.

The step that matters

Heat over gentle fire until hot, then cover and let stew. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and prevents the proteins from tightening and drying out during the long stew, while the cover traps moisture.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, pepper, butter, lettuce, onion):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, pepper, butter, lettuce, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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