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Mutton Chops, with Vegetables

A dish of mutton chops simmered with vegetables and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mutton Chops, with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the mutton chops into good shape.

  2. Fry the chops in butter until half done, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Prepare the vegetables, cutting them into similar sizes.

  4. Stew the vegetables in white broth until tender.

Make the gravy

  1. In the same pan, fry the shredded onion in the remaining butter.

  2. Thicken the onion with flour to make a gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the gravy and the chops to the stewpan with the vegetables. Shake well over the fire until fully cooked.

  2. Serve with sauce over the chops.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Asparagus + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which is browned in butter and then finished in the stew.
Butter
Fat for frying the chops and onion, adding browning and rich flavour.
White broth
Liquid that cooks the vegetables until tender and moistens the dish.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the onion and broth mixture into a gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the onion with flour to make a gravy. Flour must be cooked into the fat before liquid is added, or the gravy can turn lumpy and taste raw. Stirring keeps it smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, pepper, asparagus, celery, carrot, turnip):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, pepper, asparagus, celery, carrot, turnip. 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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