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Mutton Pie

A pie made with leftover boiled mutton, onion, parsley, and gravy, topped with tomatoes and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

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 mutton

  1. Remove the mutton from the bone and cut it into not very thin pieces.

Layer the pie

  1. In a pie dish, layer the mutton with chopped onion, parsley, pepper, and salt. Add a little cold drawn butter and dish gravy to each layer. Continue layering until the dish is nearly full.

  2. Cover the top with peeled tomatoes, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and add bread crumbs. Dot with small pieces of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the tomatoes are warm and the mutton is hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 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

Leftover boiled mutton
Forms the main body of the pie and carries its savoury flavour.
Cold drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the meat from drying out as it heats.
Dish gravy
Moistens the layers and adds savoury depth as it soaks into the meat.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, lightly browned topping over the tomatoes.
Peeled tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the rich meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsley, pepper, butter, tomato, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, pepper, butter, tomato, bread. 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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