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Mutton Stew with Rice

A stew of mutton, onion, carrots, herbs, and water simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Stew with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the mutton pieces until tender.

  2. Add chopped onion, salt, and pepper; cook for 10-12 minutes over low heat.

  3. Add small carrots, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, and garlic.

  4. Moisten with water, cover, and simmer gently for 1 hour.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat and rich flavour as it cooks until tender.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the base flavour of the stew.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and hold their shape through the long, gentle simmer.
Water
Moistens the pot so the stew simmers gently and the meat becomes tender.

The step that matters

Simmering gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer keeps the mutton tender and prevents the meat fibres from tightening and drying out. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too quickly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, carrot, parsley, thyme, garlic):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, carrot, parsley, thyme, garlic. 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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