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Cold Mutton, with Purée of Tomatoes

A baked mutton dish layered with tomato purée and topped with salt, pepper, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Mutton, with Purée of Tomatoes

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

  1. Reduce the tomatoes to a pulp.

Assemble

  1. Butter a small pan and spread half of the tomato purée in it.

  2. Slice the cold mutton and layer it over the purée.

  3. Cover with the remaining purée.

  4. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and bread crumbs on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is lightly browned.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh tomatoes
Reduced to a purée that forms the moist, flavourful base layers of the dish.
Cold mutton
Forms the meat layer, which is already cooked and only needs heating through in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping on the surface during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is lightly browned. The bread crumbs brown through dry heat in the oven. Watching for a light golden colour, rather than a dark one, keeps the topping crisp without drying the layers beneath.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, 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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