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Cornish Pasties

Cornish Pasties are savory pastries filled with minced mutton, potatoes, onion, and herbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cornish Pasties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the mutton finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced meat, chopped onion, and diced potatoes.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, thyme, and chopped parsley.

Assemble the pasties

  1. Make pie crust and cut it into small squares.

  2. Place a tablespoon of the meat mixture in the center of each square.

  3. Press the corners of the squares together to seal.

  4. Lay the pasties on a greased baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Make a small hole in the top of each pasty before serving.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 filling, giving the pasties their savory base.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the meat filling as it cooks.
Pie crust
Forms the sealed pastry shell that holds the filling during baking.

The step that matters

Sealing the corners. Pressing the corners firmly closes the pastry so the filling stays inside while baking. A weak seal lets juices leak out and can leave the filling dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, pepper, thyme, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, pepper, thyme, parsley. 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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