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A Shoulder of Mutton and Celery-Sauce

A roasted mutton shoulder served with a sauce made from boiled celery, flour, butter, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

A Shoulder of Mutton and Celery-Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the shoulder of mutton until fully cooked.

  2. Wash and clean the celery, removing the green tops and outside stalks.

  3. Cut the celery into thin pieces and boil in gravy until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the celery with flour and butter.

  2. Pour the celery sauce over the mutton and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mutton + celerytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together928 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 shoulder
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long boiling.
Celery
Softens in gravy and forms the body and flavor of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the celery sauce so it coats the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the thickened sauce.
Gravy
Cooks the celery and carries its flavor into the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the celery with flour and butter. Flour needs to be cooked into the liquid to avoid a raw, starchy taste and lumps. Adding it to a simmering sauce and stirring keeps it smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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