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Mutton Stew

A stew of mutton cubes simmered with water, turnip, pearl barley, onion, parsley, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the bone in a saucepan with the cold water and simmer for 30 minutes.

Cook the stew

  1. Wash the pearl barley thoroughly and add it to the saucepan with the cubed mutton and vegetables.

  2. Strain the water from the bones and pour it over the meat and vegetables.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour, skimming off any foam that rises to the surface.

  4. Add the minced parsley and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

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. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Long simmering softens its connective tissue, making the meat tender and enriching the broth.
Pearl barley
Releases starch during cooking, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Turnip
Softens during simmering and adds mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Chopped onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding savory depth to the broth.
Minced parsley
Added near the end, its fresh, green aroma stays bright rather than cooking away.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam. Foam that rises during simmering carries impurities that can cloud the broth and add off flavors. Skimming it regularly keeps the stew clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, barley, parsley, mutton):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, barley, parsley, mutton. 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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