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Mutton Pie

A savory pie filled with mutton and kidneys, seasoned with herbs, eschalots, and spices, topped with pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove all fat from the mutton and cut it into neat cutlets.

  2. Skin the kidneys, cut them into pieces, and add to the cutlets.

  3. Season the cutlets and kidneys with salt, pepper, cayenne, sweet herbs, and eschalots.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cutlets and kidneys in a pie dish and add the remaining seasoning.

  2. Add a little cold water to make the gravy.

  3. Cover the dish with pastry, make a hole in the center, glaze, and bake for 2 hours at 300°F (150°C).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton loin
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, slow bake.
Kidneys
Add a rich, deep flavor to the meat filling.
Eschalots
Add a mild savory sweetness and aroma to the seasoning.
Pastry
Forms the sealed crust that holds in moisture while the filling cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water for the gravy. Too little liquid can leave the meat dry during a two-hour bake, while the cold water helps create a gravy as the juices and gelatin release and mingle.

“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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