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Mutton Shoulder, Baked

A baked mutton shoulder larded with bacon, cooked with onions, parsnip, carrot, garlic, cloves, bay leaf, basil, and water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Lard the shoulder of mutton with streaked bacon.

  2. Place it in a suitable stewpan with the onions, parsnip, carrot, garlic, cloves, bay leaf, and basil.

  3. Add ½ cup of water or stock, and season with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Set the stewpan in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Once the meat is done, strain the sauce through a sieve.

  3. Skim the fat and blend in 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 until tender in the covered stewpan.
Streaked bacon
Adds fat that bastes the lean meat as it cooks, keeping it moist and flavourful.
Onions
Break down during cooking to add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Parsnip
Breaks down into the vegetables that are blended in to thicken the sauce.
Carrot
Softens and adds sweetness, and its pulp helps thicken the blended sauce.

The step that matters

Blending the vegetables into the sauce. Vegetables thicken the sauce only when they are cooked soft enough to blend smoothly. Skimming the fat first keeps the sauce from tasting greasy and separating.

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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