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Mutton Shoulder, Stewed

A stew of mutton shoulder stuffed with bread, suet, parsley, and spices, simmered with onion, Port wine, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Shoulder, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Bone the shoulder of mutton.

  2. Fill the space with grated bread, minced suet, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Sew or fasten it with small skewers.

  4. Brown the stuffed mutton in a frying pan with butter.

Stew and finish

  1. Break the bone and place it in a saucepan with water, onion, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  2. Let it stew until the strength is extracted.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Thicken it with butter rolled in flour.

  5. Add the mutton and Port wine to the saucepan.

  6. Cover.

  7. Let it stew gently for two hours.

  8. Stir in mushroom ketchup.

  9. Garnish with 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton shoulder
Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the stuffing so it holds together when the meat is cooked.
Grated bread
Absorbs juices and fat in the stuffing, keeping it moist and lightly textured.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Flour
Combined with butter, it thickens the strained broth into a smoother sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished stewed sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with the lid on. Gentle, covered simmering keeps the meat tender and moist; a hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can make the stuffing fall apart.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, egg, butter. 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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