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Haricot Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton stew with carrots, turnips, onions, cloves, wine, soy sauce, and a flour‑thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Haricot Mutton

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haricot Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Place the mutton in a saucepan that covers it closely.

  2. Add the diced carrots, turnips, and onions around or under the mutton.

  3. Add the cloves, pepper, salt, and enough water to cover the mutton.

  4. Simmer for 4 hours, allowing the water to reduce and create gravy.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the meat and skim off excess fat from the gravy.

  2. About 30 minutes before serving, stir in the white wine and soy sauce.

  3. Thicken the gravy with a little flour.

  4. Bring the gravy to a boil before serving.

  5. Serve the mutton and pour the vegetables and gravy over 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Mutton
Supplies the main meat, whose collagen softens during long simmering to give tender meat.
Onions
Break down during simmering, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, fatty gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid as it heats.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and colour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour must be mixed smoothly into the liquid, or it forms lumps; it thickens only when heated, so the gravy must be brought to a boil.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, pepper, white wine, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, pepper, white wine, sauce. 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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