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A Hodge-podge of Mutton

A stew of mutton and assorted vegetables simmered for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Hodge-podge of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into steaks and remove all the fat.

Cook

  1. Place the steaks in a pitcher with lettuce, turnips, carrots, cucumbers, onions, pepper, and salt.

  2. Seal the pitcher tightly and place it in a pan of boiling water.

  3. Boil for four hours, adding fresh boiling water as needed to maintain the level.

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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and release flavour into the broth.
Turnips
Add body and mild sweetness as they cook down in the juices.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the vegetables and liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the water level topped up. The pitcher is cooked in a water bath for four hours, so the water must stay at a steady boil. If it drops, the contents cook unevenly and can dry out or lose the gentle, moist heat that tenderises the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, lettuce, turnip, carrot, cucumber, pepper):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Endivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, lettuce, turnip, carrot, cucumber, 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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