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Dartmouth Pie

A savory pie made with minced mutton, beef suet, currants, sugar, salt, nutmeg, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dartmouth Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the mutton and place it in a bowl.

  2. Add the beef suet, currants, sugar, salt, and nutmeg to the minced mutton.

Make the paste

  1. In a saucepan, boil the butter and beef suet together.

  2. Work the melted mixture into the flour to make a paste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the meat mixture with the paste.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1.5 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Mutton
Provides the meat base and savory richness of the filling.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and the paste tender.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Flour
Forms the paste that encloses and holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the paste, improving its tenderness.

The step that matters

Working the melted mixture into the flour. Mixing the hot fat into flour must be done evenly so the paste is cohesive and not greasy or crumbly. Fat coats flour proteins and limits gluten formation, so a tender, workable crust depends on even distribution.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, beef, sugar, nutmeg, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, beef, sugar, nutmeg, 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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