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Mutton Pie

A savory pie filled with seasoned mutton, port wine, and game bird gravy, baked under a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and red wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Mutton Pie

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 the meat

  1. Trim the mutton loin of skin, suet, sinew, and excess fat.

  2. Season the meat with plenty of black pepper.

  3. In a hot pan, toss the meat in butter for 5 minutes, then let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cooled meat in a pie dish lined with crust.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt, port wine, and pour over the gravy.

  3. Cover with a lid of crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

  4. If making a raised pie, do not add the gravy until after baking.

Optional flavouring

  1. For added flavor, rub the mutton with sugar and soak it in a mixture of vinegar and red wine for 4‑5 days before making the pie.

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. Port wine + red winetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parmesan cheese + red winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + red winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton loin
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during slow baking.
Butter
Browns the meat surface in a hot pan, adding flavour before the pie is baked.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the meat and juices.
Gravy made from bones of game birds
Adds moisture and savoury richness that keeps the filling juicy during baking.

The step that matters

Cooling the browned meat before assembling. Placing hot meat in the crust can soften the pastry from below and make the filling release excess liquid, so letting it cool first helps the base stay crisp.

“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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