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Cold Mutton

Thinly sliced cold mutton arranged on an oval dish with chopped egg, capers and flowers, served with a vinegar and oil sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Pierre Blot · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cold Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the cold mutton into thin slices, as evenly as possible.

  2. Place a paste-cutter about an inch and a half in diameter in the middle of an oval dish.

  3. Arrange the slices of meat around the dish, one slice lapping over another.

  4. Fill the two empty places on the other two sides with chopped hard-boiled white and yolk of egg, kept separate, with the yolk farther from the paste-cutter.

Garnish the dish

  1. Put a string of chopped yolk of egg all around the meat, then a string of chopped white of egg outside it, then chopped parsley around the white.

  2. Remove the paste-cutter and put a rose, or two or three pinks, or a small bunch of violets in its place.

  3. Place one or three capers on each small heap of yolk of egg in the middle of the dish, and capers here and there on the string of white of egg.

  4. Place a rose at each end of the dish.

  5. Place six radishes around the dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Put half a teaspoonful of mustard, a little pepper and salt in a bowl.

  2. Pour one or two tablespoonfuls of vinegar on, little by little, beating with a fork.

  3. Add three or four tablespoonfuls of oil in the same way.

  4. When the sauce is well mixed, serve it in a boat or saucer with the dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

205Calories
7 gProtein
19 gFat
1 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Capers1 tbsp (9g) drained2

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

By Pierre Blot. 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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Capers + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the oil and egg.
Oil
Forms the fat phase of the sauce, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Mustard
Helps the oil and vinegar bind into a stable, smooth emulsion.
Eggs
Chopped whites and yolks add colour and mild richness to the garnish.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar and oil slowly while beating. Adding liquid gradually while beating breaks it into tiny droplets that stay suspended, so the sauce emulsifies. Adding it all at once lets the oil and vinegar separate.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, capers, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, capers, egg. 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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