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Modern Potato Pasty

A baked dish of mutton cutlets topped with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Modern Potato Pasty

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Trim excess fat from the mutton cutlets and wash them.

  3. Dredge the cutlets lightly with flour and season with salt and pepper or cayenne.

Assemble

  1. Place the cutlets in a tin mold and add enough broth or water to create gravy.

  2. Stir in the mushroom catsup or Harvey's sauce.

  3. Boil and mash the potatoes with butter and milk or cream until smooth.

  4. Spread the mashed potatoes over the cutlets, leaving a rough surface.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the mold and bake for 45 to 75 minutes, depending on size.

  2. Serve with a folded napkin around the mold and do not lift the cover until serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together968 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat that cooks slowly in the covered mold, releasing juices into the gravy.
Potatoes
Form a mashed topping that seals in moisture and browns lightly on the surface.
Flour
Lightly coats the cutlets, helping the surface brown and thickening the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the mashed potato topping.

The step that matters

Spread the mashed potatoes over the cutlets, leaving a rough surface.. The potato layer must be smooth enough to seal the mold but textured so the top can brown. Keeping the cover on traps steam, which keeps the meat moist while it cooks.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, pepper, mushroom, butter, milk. 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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