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Mutton Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, onions, turnips, and potatoes simmered in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and turnip share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Fry the mutton bits in 2 ounces of butter for 15 minutes.

  2. Dredge with 1½ ounces of flour and let it brown.

  3. Add 1 quart of boiling water, 2 teaspoons of salt, ½ teaspoon of pepper, and a pinch of summer savory.

  4. Add the halved onions and cover closely; let it simmer for 45 minutes.

Add the vegetables and serve

  1. Fry the cork-shaped turnips in 1 ounce of butter until brown.

  2. Drop the fried turnips into the stew, cover, and continue boiling for 1 hour.

  3. Add the potatoes and cook until tender.

  4. Remove the onions, check the seasoning, and serve in a hot platter.

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. Summer savory + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Summer savory + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + turniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat and rich savoury flavour that the stew is built around.
Flour
Dredged onto the browned meat, it thickens the broth as it cooks.
Butter
Fat used for frying the mutton and turnips, adding browning and richness.
Onions
Soften during the simmer, releasing sweetness and aroma into the broth.
Turnips
Browned first in butter, giving a caramelised flavour and firm texture to the stew.
Potatoes
Cook until tender in the broth, adding body and starch that thicken the stew.

The step that matters

Browning the flour on the mutton. Letting the flour brown in the fat before adding liquid builds nutty, roasted flavour and colour. Adding the water too soon leaves a pale, raw-tasting base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, flour, pepper, summer savory, clove, turnip):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, pepper, summer savory, clove, turnip. 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 stew recipes

with Rice 14Irish 9with Carrots 5with Dumplings 4with Lettuce and Peas 4with Turnips 3 See all 234 →

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