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Mutton Kebobbed

Mutton Kebobbed is a roasted mutton steak kebab served with a ketchup‑floured gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton Kebobbed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the loin of mutton into steaks and remove the fat and skin.

  2. Mix grated nutmeg, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and herbs.

  3. Dip the steaks in the yolks of 3 eggs and sprinkle the mixture over them.

  4. Reassemble the steaks, tie them together, and fasten on a small spit.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast at 400°F (200°C), basting with butter and meat juices.

  2. Prepare ½ pint of gravy, adding 2 tablespoons of ketchup and 1 teaspoon of flour.

  3. Boil the gravy and pour it over the mutton after skimming off the fat.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 loin
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked as steaks on a spit.
Egg yolks
Bind the crumb coating so it adheres to the meat and browns during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating over the surface of the meat.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a richer surface.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running off.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, deepening its flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy after skimming off the fat. Boiling thickens and concentrates the gravy, and skimming removes excess fat so the sauce stays clean-tasting and does not become greasy or split.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, bread, egg, butter, ketchup, 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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