Skip to main content
Main

A Good Mutton Pie

A savory pie made with mutton loin, optional herbs, shallots, forcemeat, kidneys, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Good 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. Roll out the pastry and line a buttered dish.

  3. Remove all fat from the mutton loin and slice it into equal cutlets.

  4. Season the cutlets with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer the cutlets in the dish, adding minced herbs and shallots if desired.

  2. Optionally, add thinly rolled forcemeat between the layers.

  3. Intermingle mutton kidneys with the meat for richer gravy.

  4. Pour in a little cold water.

  5. Roll out the pastry for the top, about ½ inch thick, and cover the pie securely.

  6. Trim the edges and make a hole in the center for steam.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours.

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. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Mutton + shallottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 flavourful during long gentle baking.
Pastry
Forms the enclosing crust that holds the filling and bakes to a crisp, golden shell.
Mutton kidneys
Release juices and richness into the surrounding gravy as the pie cooks.

The step that matters

Cover the pie securely and make a steam hole. A tight seal keeps moisture in so the meat cooks in its own juices and gravy, while the vent lets steam escape so the crust does not turn soggy or burst.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper. 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.

More mutton pie recipes

with Potato Crust 4 See all 109 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipes