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Small Raised Mutton Pies

A small raised pie filled with mutton, mushrooms, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Small Raised Mutton Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces, without using a chopping knife.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the mutton, stock, butter, thyme, parsley, shallot, and mushrooms.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes while stirring.

Assemble and bake

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then fill the pastry with it.

  2. Bake the pies until golden brown, then cut the tops off and fill them with any remaining meat mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve the pies on a napkin.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat that forms the main body and flavour of the filling.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the meat stays juicy in the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savoury flavour to the filling as they cook.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that builds the filling's base flavour.
Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before filling the pastry. Letting the mixture cool keeps hot liquid from soaking and softening the raw pastry, helping the crust bake crisp and hold its shape.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, thyme, parsley, mushroom, pepper. 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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