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Oxford John, Mutton

A thinly sliced mutton dish cooked in butter and served with a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Oxford John, Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into very thin slices, removing skin and sinew.

  2. Season the slices with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Dip the slices into a mixture of parsley, thyme, and shallots.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry the seasoned mutton in butter until lightly browned on both sides.

  2. Cover with brown gravy and add a piece of butter rolled in flour and lemon juice.

  3. Let it cook until the gravy is about to boil, then serve on a hot dish with sippets.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the main meat, which cooks quickly when sliced very thin.
Butter
Fat that browns the mutton slices and adds richness to the gravy.
Flour
Rolled into the butter to thicken the brown gravy as it cooks.
Shallots
Add a mild onion aroma that flavours the coating on the mutton.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that balances the rich butter and gravy.

The step that matters

Let the gravy come almost to a boil. Flour in the butter thickens the gravy only as it heats. Boiling hard or stopping too early can leave it lumpy or thin, so heat gently until it is just about to boil.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, parsley, thyme, shallot, butter, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, parsley, thyme, shallot, butter, lemon. 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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