Name: Mutton Pie
Ingredients: Steaks from a loin or neck of mutton; Salt; Pepper; Onion; Water; Pastry dough

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 ↓

Mutton Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cut steaks from the mutton and remove some fat.
Season with salt, pepper, and chopped onion.
Place a little water at the bottom of a pie dish.
Add a strip of pastry around the edge of the dish.
Cover with a moderately thick layer of pastry.
For small pies, break each bone in two, season, and pinch the edges closed.
After baking, pour a spoonful of gravy made from mutton into each pie.

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.

Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,531 recipes

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