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Mutton Shoulder, Baked

A slow‑cooked mutton shoulder with bacon larding, onions, root vegetables, garlic, herbs, and stock, served with a thickened sauce.

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 an earthen stewpan suitable for the size of the joint.

  3. Add the sliced onions, parsnip, carrot, garlic, cloves, bay leaf, basil, water or stock, 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 sauce.

  4. Squeeze the vegetables to thicken it.

  5. 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

Mutton shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, moist baking.
Streaked bacon
Adds fat that bastes the lean meat and contributes savoury flavour as it melts.
Onions
Break down during baking to add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Parsnip
Softens and dissolves into the sauce, adding sweetness and thickening it.
Carrot
Softens and dissolves into the sauce, adding sweetness and thickening it.

The step that matters

Squeezing the vegetables to thicken the sauce. Cooked vegetables release their starch and pulp when pressed, which thickens the strained liquid. Pressing too little leaves the sauce thin, while the vegetables must be cooked soft enough to release it easily.

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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