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Mutton Breast Collared

A collared mutton breast cooked in gravy made from its bones, onions, parsley, lemon thyme, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 Breast Collared

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Bone the mutton and remove all gristles.

  2. Make a forcemeat with bread crumbs, parsley, lemon thyme, and minced anchovy; season with salt and white pepper.

  3. Spread the forcemeat over the mutton, roll it tightly, and tie it with tape.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Place the rolled mutton in boiling water.

  2. Make gravy with the bones, onions, parsley, lemon thyme, pepper, and salt; strain and thicken with butter and flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add vinegar and mushroom ketchup to the gravy.

  2. Garnish with cut lemon or pickles.

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. Parsley + lemontop 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. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Mutton + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton breast
Provides the meat that is rolled around the stuffing and cooked until tender.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together inside the rolled meat.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat, helping it set and hold its shape when cooked.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth to the forcemeat, which is hard to pin down in the finished dish.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, umami flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy to give it body.

The step that matters

Adding vinegar and mushroom ketchup to the gravy. These acidic and savoury additions are added at the end because heat and long cooking can dull their bright, fresh flavours. Adding them just before serving keeps the gravy tasting lively.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, parsley, lemon, thyme, anchovy, egg. 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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