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Mutton, Casserole Of, Plain

A casserole of sliced mutton baked with mashed potatoes or suet crust and thick meat gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mutton, Casserole Of, Plain

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. Cut the mutton into small, neat slices and season with coarse sea salt.

  2. Line a well-buttered mold with mashed potatoes or suet-crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the mold with the seasoned mutton and moisten with thick meat gravy.

  2. Cover the top with more mashed potatoes.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve with additional gravy.

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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  3. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which is cooked gently again so it stays tender and moist.
Mashed potatoes or suet-crust
Forms the lining and top layer that encloses the meat while it bakes.
Thick meat gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the sliced meat does not dry out in the oven.
Butter
Greases the mold so the crust releases cleanly and the base browns lightly.

The step that matters

Moistening the meat with gravy. Sliced meat that is already cooked dries out quickly in heat. Enough thick gravy coats the slices and keeps them juicy during the short bake.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, meat, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, meat, 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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