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Mutton, Devilled

A dish of sliced cooked mutton seasoned with mustard, pepper, salt, cayenne, and served with mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton, Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cooked mutton into neat slices.

  2. Spread both sides with a little made mustard.

  3. Sprinkle with white pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little cayenne.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil on a gridiron over a clear fire for 3-4 minutes, then turn and broil the other side.

  2. Place on a very hot dish.

  3. Heat the mushroom ketchup and pour it around the meat before serving.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mutton + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Mustard + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, and its browned surface from broiling gives flavour.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the meat.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the meat its characteristic spiced, deviled bite.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the sauce poured around the meat.

The step that matters

Broil on a gridiron over a clear fire. The meat is already cooked, so it only needs a short, hot sear to brown without drying out. Too long or too cool a fire toughens and dries the slices, and turning once ensures both sides brown evenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, mustard, pepper, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, mustard, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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