Skip to main content
Main

Mutton a LA Creole

A Creole-style mutton stew with butter, flour, stock, tomatoes, rice, onion, celery, and curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,442 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the mutton or lamb into ½ inch square pieces.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and fry the meat until nicely browned.

  2. Mix in the flour and pour in the hot stock.

  3. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 2 hours.

Finish

  1. Add the canned tomatoes, cooked rice, fried onion, and chopped celery.

  2. Season with curry powder, salt, and pepper to taste.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mutton + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,375 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,990 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb
Provides the main meat, which browns and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the meat, helping it brown and carrying flavor.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the stock into a richer, smoother sauce as it cooks.
Hot stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gives the stew its body and savory flavor.
Canned tomatoes
Adds acidity, body and a fresh tomato flavor to the stew.

The step that matters

Brown the meat until nicely browned. Browning the meat in hot butter triggers Maillard reactions that build deep, savory flavor. Pale, steamed meat gives a flatter stew, so fry in a single layer and avoid crowding the pan.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, tomato, rice, celery, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Mutton BrothIllustrationMutton Broth292 recipesIllustration of Cream of Celery SoupIllustrationCream of Celery Soup113 recipesIllustration of Cream of Tomato SoupIllustrationCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes