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Mutton Shoulder, Baked

A baked mutton shoulder with vegetables, simmered in a sauce of bacon, onions, parsnip, carrot, garlic, cloves, bay leaf, basil, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Mutton Shoulder, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Lard the shoulder of mutton with streaked bacon.

  3. Place the mutton in an earthen stewpan suitable for the size of the joint.

  4. Add the sliced onions, parsnip, carrot, garlic, cloves, bay leaf, basil, water or stock, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover and bake in the oven until the meat is done.

  2. Strain the sauce through a sieve, skimming off the fat.

  3. Squeeze the vegetables to thicken the sauce.

  4. Serve the sauce with the meat.

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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Clove + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of mutton
Is the main cut of meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender and moist.
Streaked bacon
Lardoning adds fat that bastes the lean mutton and keeps it moist during baking.
Onions
Break down during baking, adding sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.
Parsnip
Breaks down into the sauce, adding sweetness and body to thicken it.
Carrot
Softens and dissolves into the sauce, adding sweetness and body.
Water or stock
Provides the cooking liquid that gently steams and braises the meat.

The step that matters

Skimming off the fat from the sauce. Fat rendered from the mutton and bacon floats on the cooking liquid. Removing it before serving keeps the sauce from tasting greasy and lets its flavour come through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsnip, carrot, clove, garlic, basil, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsnip, carrot, clove, garlic, basil, pepper. 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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