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Boiled Neck of Mutton

A boiled neck of mutton served with mashed turnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Neck of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Bone the best end of the neck of mutton.

  2. Boil the mutton for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the skin from the mutton.

Mash and serve

  1. Mash the turnips with butter and cream.

  2. Serve the mutton with the mashed turnips.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Mutton + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together550 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue add richness and flavour as it cooks.
Turnips
Mashed, they form the bulk of the side and add body and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the mashed turnips smooth and richly flavoured.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat so the mashed turnips become soft and creamy.

The step that matters

Boiling the mutton. Keep the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard rolling boil. Vigorous boiling toughens meat fibres and drives out moisture, while gentle heat lets the connective tissue soften and the meat stay tender.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, cream. 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.

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