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Mutton Stew with Vegetables

A hearty stew of mutton pieces with onions, carrots, turnip, lima beans, and a roux base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mutton Stew with Vegetables

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the mutton pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. Sauté the mutton and small onions in butter until golden.

Make the stew

  1. Add flour to form a roux, then moisten with boiling stock.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim, and season with nutmeg and garlic.

  3. When half done, add carrot, turnip, and lima beans.

  4. Simmer until fully cooked and serve.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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 and rich flavour as it browns and slowly becomes tender in the stew.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Butter
Carries browning in the pan, adding golden colour and a rich, toasty flavour to the meat and onions.
Small onions
Soften and turn sweet as they cook, adding depth to the stew's flavour.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and firm texture that holds up during long simmering.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavour and tender texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Make the roux and moisten with boiling stock. Cooking flour in butter before adding liquid cooks out raw starch taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding cold or uneven liquid can cause lumps, so the stock should be added gradually and stirred.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, flour, nutmeg, clove, garlic. 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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