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Mutton Shoulder, Stewed

A stew of a stuffed mutton shoulder with bread, suet, parsley, spices, eggs, and Port wine, finished with mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Preheat a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Bone the shoulder of mutton.

  3. Fill the shoulder with a mixture of grated bread, minced suet, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and beaten egg yolks.

  4. Sew or skewer the stuffed shoulder closed.

  5. Brown the stuffed mutton in the frying pan with butter.

Make the broth

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

  2. Stew until the flavor is extracted.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Thicken the broth with butter rolled in flour.

Stew and finish

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

  2. Cover the saucepan.

  3. Stew gently for two hours.

  4. Stir in mushroom ketchup.

  5. 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

Shoulder of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow stewing.
Grated bread
Soaks up juices and helps the stuffing hold together with a soft texture.
Minced suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the stuffing so it holds its shape when sliced.
Butter
Browns the meat for color and flavor, and thickens the broth when rolled in flour.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for two hours. Gentle, covered simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in mutton slowly. Boiling hard would toughen the muscle fibers and dry out the stuffed meat.

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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