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Mutton Pie

A savory pie filled with mutton, seasoned with salt and pepper, encased in a buttered pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Butter a pie dish and roll out half of the flour to line the dish.

  3. Evenly layer the mutton in the dish.

  4. Sprinkle the mutton with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Pour cold water into the dish until it's an inch from the brim.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the remaining paste to cover the pie, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Wet the edges of the paste with cold water or egg white and seal securely.

  3. Trim excess paste close to the rim and cut a small slit in the center.

  4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the paste that encloses the filling and holds its shape when baked.
Mutton
Provides the main filling; slow baking softens its connective tissue for tenderness.
Butter
Greases the dish so the pastry releases cleanly and adds richness to the crust.
Cold water
Fills the pie with liquid that turns to steam and moistens the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste edges. A tight seal keeps the steam and juices inside the crust. If the edges are not wet and pressed firmly, they can gap and let liquid escape, leaving the filling dry.

“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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