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Ragout Op Mutton or Lamb

A slow‑cooked stew of mutton or lamb with onions, carrots, peas, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ragout Op Mutton or Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the onion and carrot, then brown the meat without burning it.

  3. Stir in the flour, then gradually add the water.

Simmer

  1. Season with salt and pepper, and add the tied herbs.

  2. Cover and simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Add the peas 10 minutes 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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 or lamb
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the ragout as it simmers slowly.
Butter
Carries flavour and helps the onion, carrot and meat brown in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Peas
Add sweetness and a bright green texture when added near the end.

The step that matters

Browning the meat without burning it. Browning builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction, but scorched butter and fond turn bitter. Medium heat lets the meat colour evenly while the pan stays free of burnt residue that would taint the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, carrot, flour, pepper, parsley, clove. 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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