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Minced Mutton with Cucumbers

A stew of minced mutton and cucumber cooked in savory brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,488 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Minced Mutton with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin and seeds from the cucumber, then cut it into small square pieces.

Make the stew

  1. Stew the cucumber pieces in savory brown sauce until tender.

  2. Add the minced mutton and thickening to the pan, mixing well.

  3. Heat through without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve piled high on a dish with fried bread around it.

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. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cucumber + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced mutton
Provides the main protein, and its fat adds richness and flavour to the stew.
Cucumber
Softens as it stews, giving the dish its main vegetable texture and mild fresh flavour.
Savory brown sauce
Supplies the liquid and savoury flavour in which the cucumber cooks until tender.
Thickening (flour or cornstarch)
Starch swells in the hot liquid, thickening the sauce so it clings to the meat and cucumber.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Boiling can toughen minced meat and cause the starch thickening to break down or turn thin and lumpy, so keep the stew at a gentle heat once the mutton is added.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sauce, flour, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce, flour, bread. 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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