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Leg of Mutton with Carrots

A slow‑cooked stew of leg of mutton and carrots simmered in butter, flour, broth, herbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton with Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Sear the mutton

  1. Heat the butter in a stew-pan over medium heat.

  2. Sear the leg of mutton on all sides for 5–10 minutes.

  3. Remove the mutton and mix the butter with flour in the pan.

  4. Add the broth or boiling water and simmer, stirring constantly.

Stew

  1. Return the mutton to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and add the herbs.

  2. Boil slowly for 3 hours.

  3. In a separate pan, brown the carrot pieces in butter.

  4. Add the browned carrots to the mutton and boil for an additional hour before serving.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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

Leg of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the meat and carrots for flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a stew sauce when cooked with the butter.
Broth or boiling water
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens the meat and carries flavour through the stew.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour, and softens during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Adding the broth to the butter and flour. Stirring constantly while the liquid is added keeps the flour smooth, so it thickens the sauce evenly without lumps.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

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