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Mutton Pib

A baked mutton pie with onions, parsley, tomatoes, and breadcrumbs.

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 Pib

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. Set aside the water from boiled mutton until the next morning.

  2. Remove the meat from the bone and cut it into thick pieces.

Assemble the pie

  1. In a pie dish, layer the mutton with onion, parsley, pepper, salt, cold drawn butter, and dish gravy.

  2. Repeat layering until the dish is nearly full.

  3. Cover the layers with peeled tomatoes, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and top with bread crumbs and bits 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 leg of mutton
Forms the savory filling, providing the main body and meaty flavor of the pie.
Dish gravy from mutton
Adds moisture and savory flavor so the layers do not dry out while baking.
Cold drawn butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and keeps the meat tender.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned topping on the baked pie.
Peeled tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the rich meat layers.

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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