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For Boiled Mutton

A sauce made with cream, flour, and boiling water for boiled mutton.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

For Boiled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub flour or corn-starch into the cream.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture.

  3. Alternatively, brown some flour in a pan without burning it.

  4. Strain the meat juice into the browned flour while hot.

  5. Add cream and a little salt, then let it boil once more.

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. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Flour + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + tomatotop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness, body and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour or corn-starch
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in hot liquid.

The step that matters

Rub flour or corn-starch into the cream. Starch clumps when it meets hot liquid unless it is first dispersed evenly in a cool liquid. Rubbing it smooth into the cream before adding boiling water helps the sauce thicken without lumps.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour. 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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