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Stewed Mutton Cutlets

A stew of mutton cutlets simmered with tomatoes, butter, and currant jelly, thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the mutton cutlets and chopped tomatoes.

  2. Heat very slowly for one hour.

  3. Turn the meat, add the boiling water, and stew covered for half an hour.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Transfer the cutlets to a hot dish.

  2. Strain the gravy back into the saucepan, thicken with browned flour, and stir in the currant jelly until melted.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered stewing.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that help build the body of the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running off.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the rich meat and gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the initial browning and flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Heat very slowly for one hour. Low, gentle heat lets the collagen in the mutton break down slowly into tender meat while the fat renders. Rushing with high heat toughens the meat and can scorch the tomatoes and butter on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the currant

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

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

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