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Uncooked Mutton Minced

A stew of minced mutton, bacon, gravy, butter, lettuces, peas, and onion, simmered for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Uncooked Mutton Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton from the leg, remove the fat, and chop it finely with the bacon.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then place in a saucepan with the gravy and butter.

Stew

  1. Add the chopped lettuces, peas, and onion, and stir over gentle heat until hot.

  2. Cover the saucepan and let it stew gently by the fire for three hours.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, surrounded by a wall of well-cooked rice.

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. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the stew moist.
Gravy
Supplies liquid and savoury depth for the stew to simmer in.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, green flavour to the stew.
Young lettuces
Soften during cooking, adding moisture and a mild, vegetal flavour.

The step that matters

Covered gentle stewing. Long, low, covered cooking breaks down the tough connective tissue in the mutton so it becomes tender. If the heat is too high, the liquid reduces and the meat can turn dry and tough.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

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