Name: Mutton Stew
Ingredients: 1 pint water; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 2 tablespoons ketchup; 1 tablespoon mustard; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon jelly or sugar; Salt and pepper to taste; Mutton

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Combine 1 pint of water, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of ketchup, 1 tablespoon of mustard, 1 tablespoon of butter, and 1 tablespoon of jelly or sugar in a pot.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add the mutton last and allow it to stew for 15 minutes.

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.

Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ketchup + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the meat that becomes tender during the slow stewing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Jelly or sugar: Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Butter: Adds fat that gives the sauce a richer, smoother mouthfeel.

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardthe original
Shallotfits about as well
Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ketchup, butter, sugar, pepper, mutton. 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.