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Boiled Neck of Mutton

A boiled neck of mutton served with turnips, carrots, and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 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 ↓

Boiled Neck of Mutton

7 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat from the neck of mutton; optionally saw down the chine-bone, strip ribs halfway, and chop ends of bones.

  2. Place the meat in a pot with enough water to cover it.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, add a little salt, and skim off scum.

  2. Move the pot to the side of the fire and let the water cool to a temperature where a finger can be dipped.

  3. Simmer very slowly and gently until the meat is done, about 1½ hours.

  4. While the mutton simmers, boil turnips (and carrots if desired) in the same pot until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the boiled neck of mutton with the boiled turnips and carrots, pouring a little caper sauce over the meat.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

461Calories
13 gProtein
1 gFat
96 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the mutton.
Shalots
Add a mild onion-like aroma and savoury depth.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Cooling the water before simmering. If the water boils hard, the meat's proteins tighten and toughen and the outside dries out. Starting cool and simmering very gently lets the connective tissue soften slowly, keeping the meat tender and juicy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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