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Minced Mutton Au Gratin

A baked dish of minced mutton mixed with brown sauce, mushrooms, and parsley, topped with breadcrumbs and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Minced Mutton Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine brown sauce and glaze in a stewpan and boil until reduced by one-third.

  2. Add minced mutton, chopped mushrooms, and blanched parsley to the sauce and mix well.

  3. Chill the mixture in the larder or on ice until cold.

Make the base

  1. Make a short paste by rubbing butter into flour, then mix with water to form a stiff dough.

  2. Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick, cut into a circular shape, and prick the surface with a fork.

  3. Bake the dough in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

  4. Make bread crumbs from the loaf, avoiding the crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Shape the chilled mutton mixture into a sugar‑loaf shape on the baked dough.

  2. Smooth the surface with a knife dipped in hot water.

  3. Mix the egg yolk, whole egg, and a pinch of salt, then brush over the mutton.

  4. Cover the mutton with bread crumbs, pressing down to adhere.

  5. Optionally apply a second coat of bread crumbs.

  6. Brush the top with clarified butter before baking.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Brown sauce
Reduced to a rich, concentrated base that binds the filling with savory flavor.
Minced mutton
Forms the main savory filling and provides the body of the gratin.
Butter
Enriches the short paste, giving it tenderness and a crisp, short texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the short paste that holds the filling.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps the crumb coating set and brown when baked.
Bread
Makes crumbs that form a crisp, golden crust over the filling.

The step that matters

Chill the mutton mixture until cold. A warm filling is soft and loose, so it will not hold a loaf shape or stay put under the crumbs. Chilling firms the mixture so it can be shaped cleanly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, mutton, mushroom, flour, butter, bread, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, mutton, mushroom, flour, butter, bread, egg. 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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