Skip to main content
Main

Savoury Mutton

A stew of lean mutton simmered in a buttery gravy with herbs, spices, and stock, served over dry rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Savoury Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In an iron saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry until soft.

  3. Stir in the flour, sweet herbs, mace, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  4. Pour in the stock and add the glaze; bring to a boil and then let it cool.

  5. Add the mutton pieces and cook slowly for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve the mutton in a wall of dry rice, with the gravy strained over it.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding savoury depth to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness to the base.
Glaze
Adds concentrated meaty flavour and colour to the stock.

The step that matters

Let the stock cool before adding the mutton. The record says to bring the stock to a boil and then let it cool before the meat goes in. Adding meat to a fully boiling liquid can toughen its surface, so letting the liquid settle first helps the mutton cook gently and stay tender.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, onion, flour, nutmeg, pepper, rice. 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.

More mutton stew recipes

with Rice 14Irish 9with Carrots 5with Dumplings 4with Lettuce and Peas 4with Turnips 3 See all 234 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes