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Mutton Pie

A savory pie with layers of mutton, potatoes, and seasoning baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Layer the mutton slices at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Season well with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped parsley, and eschalot.

  3. Add a layer of thin slices of raw potatoes, then another layer of mutton and seasoning.

  4. Repeat the layers, finishing in a dome shape.

Cover and bake

  1. Add ½ cup of water, cover with paste, and seal the edges.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the rich, savoury meat that forms the main body of the filling.
Thin potato slices
Absorb meat juices and add starch that thickens the filling as it cooks.
Common paste
Forms a sealed crust that traps steam and browns to a golden finish in the oven.
Eschalot
Adds a mild, sharp onion-like aroma that flavours the meat layers.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste edges. A tight seal keeps the water and meat juices inside as steam, so the filling cooks through and stays moist instead of drying out or leaking in the oven.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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