Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Pot Pie

A hearty stew of mutton and salt pork, thickened with flour and milk, topped with a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pork and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,069 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into pieces no longer than 1.5 inches.

  2. Crack the bones.

  3. Place the mutton in a pot.

  4. Cover with cold water.

Stew

  1. Heat gradually.

  2. Stew for 1 hour, covered.

  3. Add the salt pork, onion, and pepper.

  4. Cover.

  5. Stew for another hour until the meat is tender.

Add the crust and finish

  1. Make a paste for the crust.

  2. Cut the paste into squares.

  3. Drop the squares into the stew.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Thicken the stew with flour stirred into cold milk.

  6. Boil once.

  7. Serve in a tureen.

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. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during long, slow stewing.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stew broth.
Flour
Thickens the stew and forms the body of the crust paste.
Milk
Mixed with flour to thicken the stew smoothly without lumps.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with flour stirred into cold milk. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, so it must be stirred into cold milk first. The starch then thickens the stew evenly as it heats and boils.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, pepper, flour, milk, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, pepper, flour, milk, corn. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes