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Sauce

Sauce for Mutton and Lamb

A sauce made with Worcestershire sauce, wine, vinegar, butter, mustard, red pepper, and lamb or mutton gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for Mutton and Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine Worcestershire sauce, wine, vinegar, butter, mustard, red pepper, and lamb or mutton gravy in a saucepan.

  2. Warm the mixture over low heat until the butter melts.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lambtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and a tangy, fermented flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel as it melts into the sauce.
Lamb or mutton gravy
Supplies the meaty base that gives the sauce its main savoury character.

The step that matters

Warm over low heat until the butter melts. Gentle heat lets the butter melt and emulsify into the liquid without separating or scorching. High heat can break the sauce and burn the milk solids in the butter, leaving it greasy or bitter.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, wine, vinegar, butter, pepper, lamb):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, wine, vinegar, butter, pepper, lamb. 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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