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To Harrico Mutton

Mutton chops served in a gravy of mutton stock, carrots, turnips, catsup, and spices, garnished with green pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Harrico Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Divide the rack of mutton into chops, keeping one bone in each.

  2. Beat the chops flat and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  3. Broil the chops until nicely cooked.

Make the gravy

  1. Make a rich gravy from the inferior parts of the mutton, seasoning with pepper, a little spice, and your choice of catsup.

  2. Strain the gravy and thicken it with butter and brown flour.

  3. Boil the diced carrots and turnips until tender.

  4. Add the vegetables to the gravy, then lay the chops in and stew for fifteen minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with green pickle.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which is cooked and then finished by stewing in the gravy.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness and smooth body when mixed with the flour.
Brown flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the chops and vegetables.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft texture to the gravy once boiled until tender.
Turnips
Add mild earthy flavor and soft texture to the gravy once boiled until tender.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy before adding the vegetables and chops. Flour thickens gravy only when it is well mixed in and heated, so adding butter and flour evenly prevents lumps and a thin or floury sauce.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, flour, turnip. 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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