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 ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Butter a pie dish and line it with half of the rolled‑out pastry.
Evenly layer the mutton in the dish.
Sprinkle the mutton with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour cold water into the dish until it’s an inch from the top.
Assemble and bake
Roll out the remaining pastry to cover the pie, ensuring it’s ½ inch thick.
Wet the edges of the pastry with cold water or egg white and seal securely.
Trim the edges close to the rim of the dish and cut a small slit in the center.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,442 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
What each ingredient does
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the pastry that encloses the pie and holds the filling.
- Mutton
- Provides the meat filling that becomes tender during the long bake.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the pastry and greases the dish.
- Cold water
- Keeps the pastry tender and helps it seal at the edges.
The step that matters
Sealing the pastry edges. Wet the edges and press them firmly so the lid bonds to the base. A weak seal lets the cooking juices escape and the pie can leak or dry out in the oven.
“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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