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Shepherd Pie

A baked mutton and potato casserole with a brown sauce base, topped with egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Shepherd Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble the pie

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped mutton, salt, pepper, onion juice, curry powder, and brown sauce. Mix well and spread the mixture in a greased dish.

  2. Top with a thick layer of hot mashed potatoes.

  3. Dab the top with the beaten egg yolk.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked mutton
Forms the savoury meat base that gives the pie its body and flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft, starchy topping that browns in the oven.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the top to promote even browning and a glossy finish.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Dab the top with the beaten egg yolk. An even coat of egg yolk helps the potato topping brown evenly and develop a glossy surface. Uneven coverage leaves pale patches, so spread it thinly across the whole surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, sauce, potato, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, sauce, potato, egg. 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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