Name: Modern Potato Pasty
Ingredients: 2 to 3 pounds mutton cutlets, trimmed of fat; Flour for dredging; Coarse sea salt and black pepper, to taste; 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup or Harvey's sauce; Broth or water, as needed for gravy; Good potatoes, enough to form a crust 3 inches thick; 1 ounce butter; 1 to 2 tablespoons milk or cream

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

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds mutton cutlets, trimmed of fat
Flour for dredging
Coarse sea salt and black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup or Harvey's sauce
Broth or water, as needed for gravy
Good potatoes, enough to form a crust 3 inches thick
1 ounce butter
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or cream

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

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

In a tin mold, arrange the mutton cutlets and season with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour.
Add enough broth or water to create gravy and stir in the mushroom ketchup or Harvey's sauce.

Top and bake

Boil and mash the potatoes smoothly with butter and milk or cream.
Spread the mashed potatoes over the mutton to form a crust.
Cover the mold and bake until the pasty is cooked through.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together968 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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 becomes the savory filling of the pasty.
Potatoes: Form a mashed crust that covers and seals the filling as it bakes.
Flour: Dusts the meat so it can thicken the gravy as it cooks.
Mushroom ketchup or harvey's sauce: Adds savory, umami depth to the gravy.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the mashed potato crust.

Swap the potato

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

Potatothe original
Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
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.