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Curried Mutton

A dish of boiled mutton mixed with rice, butter, flour, and curry powder, then canned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Curried Mutton

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curried Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice and slowly add it to 40 gallons of boiling water.

  2. Cook the rice for 35 minutes, then drain the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a kettle.

  2. Mix the flour with the melted butter, then add 6.5 gallons of water.

  3. Stir constantly until the mixture boils.

Combine and can

  1. Turn off the heat and mix in the chopped mutton, curry powder, salt, and cooked rice.

  2. While hot, place the mixture in 3-pound cans, cap them, tip, and process for 70 minutes at 250°F (120°C).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Boiled mutton
Forms the main meat body of the dish and provides most of its substance.
Rice
Adds bulk and a starchy texture that absorbs the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Curry powder
Provides the aroma and spiced flavor that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter mixture until it boils. Flour added to hot liquid can clump, and its starch only thickens smoothly when stirred evenly. Constant stirring prevents lumps and keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the kettle.

“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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