Name: Mutton Pies
Ingredients: 3 pounds best end of neck or loin of mutton; 1 teaspoon black pepper; ¾ teaspoon coarse sea salt; Flour for dredging; 4 tablespoons water or gravy; 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup; Meat-pie paste

Why it works: Pepper and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Cut the mutton into chops and trim off excess fat.
Season the chops with pepper and salt, then dredge with flour.
Place the chops in a pie dish.
Pour in the water or gravy and mushroom ketchup.

Bake

Cover with meat-pie paste and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 1.5 hours.

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.

Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mutton + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together685 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together936 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + meattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,423 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavourful during the long, slow bake.
Flour: Coats the chops, helping them brown and thickening the juices into a light gravy.
Mushroom ketchup: Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the gravy around the meat.
Meat-pie paste: Encloses the filling, trapping steam and moisture while the pastry bakes and browns.

“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.