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A Good Mutton Pie

A savory pie filled with sliced mutton, optional herbs, shallots, kidneys, and forcemeat, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Good Mutton Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roll out the pastry and line a buttered dish.

  3. Remove the fat from the mutton and slice it into equal cutlets.

  4. Season the cutlets with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer the cutlets in the dish, adding minced herbs and shallots if desired.

  2. Spread a thin layer of forcemeat between the cutlets, if using.

  3. Add mutton kidneys for extra flavor, if desired.

  4. Pour in a little cold water or gravy made from bones.

  5. Roll out the pastry for the top, about ½ inch thick, and seal the pie securely.

  6. Trim the edges and make a hole in the center for steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours until golden brown.

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. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mutton + shallottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 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

Mutton
Provides the rich meat filling that becomes tender during the long, slow bake.
Pastry
Forms a crisp, golden shell that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Mutton kidneys
Add a deeper, more intense meaty flavor to the filling.
Cold water or bone gravy
Adds moisture so the meat stays juicy and forms a savory liquid in the pie.

The step that matters

Sealing and venting the pie. A tight seal keeps juices and steam inside so the meat cooks in its own moisture. The center hole lets pressure escape so the crust does not burst or go soggy.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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