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Scrambled Mutton

A quick skillet dish of chopped mutton cooked with eggs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,039 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scrambled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped mutton and hot water, stirring until heated through.

  3. Break in the eggs and stir constantly until the eggs begin to stiffen.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt 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. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  2. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat and bulk of the dish, heated through in the pan.
Eggs
Set as they heat, binding the meat and giving the scramble its soft, tender structure.
Butter
Melts to coat the pan and add richness and flavor to the scramble.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs constantly. Eggs turn from liquid to firm curds quickly once heated. Constant stirring keeps the curds small and soft, and pulling them off the heat as they begin to stiffen prevents them from becoming dry and rubbery.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, egg, pepper. 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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