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Braised Mutton

Braised mutton stuffed with breadcrumb and herb mixture, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Braised Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Chop the suet finely and mix it with the bread crumbs, lemon rind, parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the egg and milk.

  3. Stuff the mutton with the mixture and tie it securely.

Braise

  1. Place sliced vegetables and the bones in a braising pot.

  2. Add the mutton and cover with water or stock.

  3. Boil slowly for 1.5 hours.

Glaze, bake and serve

  1. Remove the mutton, brush it with glaze, and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Make gravy from the stock, adding a little mushroom ketchup.

  3. Serve with currant jelly.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Boned shoulder of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is braised until tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bulk out the stuffing so it holds together inside the meat.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during long cooking.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds its shape when the mutton is sliced.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth to the gravy made from the braising stock.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 1.5 hours. Boiling vigorously toughens meat and can break the stuffing apart, while gentle simmering lets collagen soften into tender meat. Keeping the liquid at a slow simmer protects both the texture and the stuffing.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, lemon, parsley, egg, pepper, milk):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, lemon, parsley, egg, pepper, milk. 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 braised mutton recipes

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