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Devonshire Pie

A savory pie with stewed mutton, onions, and a suet crust, topped with apple sauce or marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devonshire Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mutton

  1. Combine mutton, water, salt, pepper, and sliced onions in a stewpan.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours until tender.

  3. Remove the bones from the meat and arrange it in a pie dish.

Assemble the pie

  1. Top with cooked onions, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and spread a thin layer of apple sauce or marmalade over the meat.

  2. Remove fat from the gravy and pour it over the meat.

Make and bake the crust

  1. Mix suet, flour, a pinch of salt, and water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Roll it out and incorporate the suet and flour thoroughly.

  3. Place the rolled crust over the pie.

  4. Bake until the crust is nicely browned.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Mutton
Slow simmering turns the tough scrag cut tender and releases flavour into the gravy.
Suet
Adds richness and a tender, flaky texture to the crust.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crust paste, holding it together when rolled and baked.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the filling as they cook down.
Apple sauce or apple marmalade
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture that lightly flavours the meat beneath the crust.

The step that matters

Remove fat from the gravy. Fat left on the gravy can make the filling greasy and cause the crust to soften. Skimming it off keeps the gravy clean-tasting and lets the crust bake crisp.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

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