Name: Common Mutton Pie
Ingredients: 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour; ½ cup minced suet or 4 oz butter and 2-3 oz very pure lard; 2 lbs mutton, trimmed of excess fat; ¾ oz coarse sea salt; ½ to 1 teaspoon black pepper; ½ pint cold water

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Common Mutton Pie

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup minced suet or 4 oz butter and 2-3 oz very pure lard
2 lbs mutton, trimmed of excess fat
¾ oz coarse sea salt
½ to 1 teaspoon black pepper
½ pint cold water

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Butter a pie dish and line it with half the rolled-out paste.
Evenly layer the mutton in the dish.
Sprinkle the mutton with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour in cold water until it's within 1 inch of the rim.
Roll out the remaining paste to cover the pie, about ½ inch thick.
Wet the edges of the paste with cold water or egg white.
Seal the edges tightly to the rim of the dish.
Cut a small slit in the top to allow steam to escape.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

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Common Mutton Pie