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Ragout of Mutton

A stew of boiled mutton slices simmered in a wine and tomato ketchup gravy with flour, onion, pepper, salt, lemon peel, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Ragout of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Place thick slices of boiled mutton in a deep dish, pour claret wine over them, cover, and let sit for 1 hour.

  2. In a pot, boil the bones and refuse portions with 4 cups of cold water until it reduces to 1 pint, strain, let cool, and remove the fat.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the strained gravy, minced onion, pepper, salt, and tomato ketchup, then boil until it reduces to 1 cup.

  2. Stir in browned flour mixed with cold water and simmer for 3 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced mutton, wine, grated lemon peel, and currant jelly, then heat slowly without boiling the meat.

  2. Once heated, pour the ragout into a deep dish 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Wine + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled mutton
Provides the main meat, which stays tender when heated gently rather than boiled.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and aroma while soaking and flavouring the meat.
Bones and refuse portions of mutton
Create a rich, gelatin-containing stock that gives the gravy body and depth.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity note that balances the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the meat slowly without boiling. Boiling toughens muscle proteins and squeezes out juices, leaving the mutton dry and chewy. Gentle heating keeps it tender and moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, wine, pepper, tomato, ketchup, flour, lemon. 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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