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Mutton, Stewed

A stew of sliced mutton with carrots, onions, and a butter‑flour gravy, served over dried rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Season the mutton slices with black pepper, coarse sea salt, shredded shallot, and mushroom powder.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the broth, mutton, sliced carrots, and chopped onions.

  3. Cover and let the mutton stew until the carrots are tender, about 30 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Transfer the meat to a hot serving dish.

  2. In a small bowl, knead the butter with flour to thicken the gravy, then add it to the stew.

  3. Stir in your preferred store sauce and serve with dried rice around the dish.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 becomes tender through slow, covered simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during cooking.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding savory sweetness and depth to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when kneaded with butter and stirred into the stew.

The step that matters

Kneading butter with flour before adding it to the stew. Flour must be blended smoothly with fat so it disperses evenly; added in clumps, it forms lumps instead of thickening the gravy evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, shallot, mushroom, carrot, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, shallot, mushroom, carrot, butter, flour. 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.

More mutton stew recipes

with Rice 14Irish 9with Carrots 5with Dumplings 4with Lettuce and Peas 4with Turnips 3 See all 234 →

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