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Beef and Mutton Pie

A savory pie made with sliced beef and mutton, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and tomato catsup, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef and Mutton Pie

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 meat

  1. Pound the meat thin and broil for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove gristly and bony parts, then cut the meat into small pieces.

  3. Season the meat with salt and pepper, and mix in butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pudding dish with pie crust and layer in the meat.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of tomato catsup and 1 large spoonful of water to each layer.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the top and cover with pie crust, making a slit in the center.

  4. Decorate with strips of pastry for appearance and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + tomatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tender meat
Forms the savoury filling that gives the pie its body and flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the meat as it cooks.
Flour
Sprinkled over the top, it helps thicken the juices and gives a set texture.
Pie crust
Forms the pastry base and lid that enclose the filling while it bakes.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity, seasoning the meat layers with tangy flavour.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter, flour. 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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