Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Pie

A pie made with mutton, stock, port wine, mushroom catsup, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,626 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into neat steaks and remove the skin and fat.

  2. Season the steaks with salt, pepper, and minced onion.

  3. If using the loin, divide the kidney and season it as well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the steaks in a dish and add stock, port wine, and mushroom catsup.

  2. Cover the dish with puff pastry and bake until golden.

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. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mutton + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

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

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 during the long baking under the pastry.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden crust that seals in the juices as the pie bakes.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the meat stays juicy and the filling is not dry.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and richness to the sauce, deepening its flavour.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cover the dish with puff pastry and bake until golden. The pastry must be sealed well around the dish so steam and juices stay in and the meat cooks gently. Baking until golden means the pastry is fully cooked and crisp rather than pale and soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More mutton pie recipes

with Potato Crust 4 See all 109 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes