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Frizzled Mutton

Thinly sliced mutton cooked with butter, currant jelly, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard 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 ↓

Frizzled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shave the mutton into thin slices.

Cook

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

  2. Add the shaved mutton to the pan.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the French mustard.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Mutton
Is the main protein, shaved thin so it cooks quickly and evenly in the pan.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the meat fry and carry flavour.
Currant jelly
Melts into the fat to add sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the meat.
French mustard
Adds sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the fat and meat.

The step that matters

Cook for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent burning. The sugars in the currant jelly can scorch quickly over direct heat, turning bitter. Constant stirring keeps the thin meat moving and the sugars from darkening too far.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

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