Skip to main content
Main

Mutton and Tomato

A slow‑cooked stew of mutton pieces simmered in tomato sauce with butter, Worcestershire sauce, onion, salt, pepper, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton and Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour.

Assemble and cook

  1. Place in an earthen dish and cover with strained tomato.

  2. Add butter, Worcestershire sauce, and onion.

  3. Cook for 5 hours in an Aladdin Pail.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Mutton neck
Long slow cooking breaks down its connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and rich.
Flour
Dredging coats the meat so the sauce thickens and the surface browns slightly.
Strained tomato
Provides the liquid base and gives the stew its acidity and body.
Butter
Adds fat, which carries flavour and gives the sauce a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and a little acidity to the tomato base.
Onion
Softens during cooking and adds sweetness and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook for 5 hours in an Aladdin Pail. Long, low, moist heat is needed to turn tough mutton neck tender. Cooking too hot or too briefly leaves the meat chewy, because collagen only softens slowly at gentle temperatures.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, flour, butter, sauce, onion):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, flour, butter, sauce, onion. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes