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Shoulder of Mutton

A shoulder of mutton stuffed with oysters, stewed or roasted with celery, onions, anchovies, and sauce of port wine, mushroom and walnut catsup, lemon pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shoulder of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Stuff the shoulder of mutton with oysters, then roll it up and bind it with tape.

  2. Stew in broth with peppercorns, celery, and onions until done.

  3. Remove the tape.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt chopped anchovies in a ladle, then add pepper and salt.

  2. Mix with hot gravy, port wine, mushroom catsup, walnut catsup, and lemon pickle.

Roast and serve

  1. Pour oyster sauce over the meat.

  2. Half roast the shoulder, then score it.

  3. Roast it further in a Dutch oven, basting the meat with the mixture as it roasts.

  4. Serve with the gravy.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the rich meat that is stuffed and roasted.
Oysters (in the method)
Stuffed inside the meat to add a briny, savoury flavour as it cooks.
Anchovies
Melted into the sauce to add salty, savoury depth.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth to the gravy.
Mushroom catsup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the sauce.
Walnut catsup
Adds a dark, rich, slightly bitter savoury note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Half roast, then score, then finish roasting. Roasting only partly before scoring and basting lets the surface brown and render fat while the interior stays moist. Basting with the sauce builds flavour and colour, so the timing matters to avoid drying the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, port wine, mushroom, walnut, lemon, pepper, celery):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, port wine, mushroom, walnut, lemon, pepper, celery. 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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