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Tinned-Mutton Pie

A pie made with tinned mutton, oatmeal, onion, parsley, sage, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tinned-Mutton Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the oatmeal jelly

  1. Combine oatmeal and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until reduced to a jelly, then cool.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel the onion.

  2. Partially boil the onion.

  3. Chop the onion finely.

  4. Open the tin of mutton.

  5. Slice the mutton.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer oatmeal, mutton, chopped onion, parsley, and sage.

  2. Season the pie with salt and pepper.

  3. Repeat layers, finishing with oatmeal on top.

  4. Dredge flour over the pie.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Cooked into a jelly that binds the layers and gives the pie a thick, moist body.
Mutton
Provides the main meat filling, with rich flavour and fat that keeps the pie moist.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens during partial boiling and baking.
Flour
Dredged over the top to help the surface brown as the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Boil the oatmeal until reduced to a jelly. The oatmeal must thicken fully so it sets into a firm layer. If it stays thin, the layers will run together and the pie will be wet rather than sliceable.

Swap the onion

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

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

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