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Haricot Mutton

A mutton stew with onions, herbs, turnip, carrots, mace, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Haricot Mutton

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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

Prepare

  1. Fry the mutton pieces until browned.

  2. Dredge the mutton with flour and add boiling water to cover.

Simmer

  1. Add the onion, bouquet of herbs, turnip, carrots, mace, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer gently until the mutton is tender.

  3. Remove the herbs and mace.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot platter surrounded by the vegetables and some gravy.

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. Turnip + carrottop 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. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + turniptop 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
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Dredging coats the meat and thickens the cooking liquid into gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Turnip
Softens during simmering, adding mild sweetness and body to the dish.
Carrots
Soften during simmering, adding natural sweetness and colour to the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the mutton is tender. A gentle simmer breaks down the tough connective tissue in mutton slowly. A rolling boil toughens the meat's outer fibres and makes the stew cloudy, so keep the liquid barely moving.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, onion, clove, turnip, carrot, pepper. 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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