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Mutton Pie

A savory pie filled with stewed mutton, fat, gravy, port wine, shallot, onions, wrapped in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,431 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mutton

  1. Season the mutton slices heavily and stew them with the sliced fat without adding water.

  2. Once tender, remove from heat and let cool in the oven.

Prepare the gravy

  1. Carefully remove all grease and fat.

  2. Combine the gravy made from bones with the strained gravy from the mutton and add the port wine.

  3. Mix in the minced shallot and button onions.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the mixture into a dish or small patty pans lined with puff pastry.

  2. Serve hot for the best flavor.

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. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  5. Port wine + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful through slow stewing.
Fat
Adds richness and moisture to the meat as it stews.
Gravy made from bones
Adds savory depth and body to the filling.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the gravy.
Shallot
Adds a mild aromatic onion flavor to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Carefully remove all grease and fat. Excess fat left in the filling makes the pie greasy and can soften the pastry. Skimming it off gives a cleaner, more balanced gravy and a crisper crust.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, port wine, shallot):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, port wine, shallot. 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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