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Mutton Pie

A pie with mutton cutlets, potatoes, and short pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

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.

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the mutton cutlets.

  2. Fry until they begin to brown, then add enough water to cover them.

  3. Let the mutton stew until fully cooked.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a short pastry crust and lay it around the dish.

  2. Place the cooked cutlets in the dish with sliced potatoes, pepper, salt, and their gravy.

  3. Cover with the pastry and seal the edges.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 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 main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it stews.
Butter
Browns the cutlets in the pan and adds richness to the filling.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling as they cook in the juices.
Short pastry crust
Forms the rich, flaky case that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the mutton stew until fully cooked. Mutton must be cooked through and tender before it goes into the pie, because the crust bakes only until golden and will not soften tough meat. Stewing in water with the browned meat builds a gravy that keeps the filling moist.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, 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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