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Mutton to Eat Like Venison

A preserved mutton dish marinated in sugar, port wine, vinegar, and spices, then baked and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton to Eat Like Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Bone the meat.

  2. Beat the meat well with a rolling pin.

  3. Rub the meat with sugar.

  4. Pour port and vinegar over the meat.

  5. Let it marinate for five days and nights.

  6. Wash the meat thoroughly.

  7. Dry the meat thoroughly.

Season and crust

  1. Season the meat with pepper, Jamaica pepper, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Place the meat in a dish.

  3. Spread butter over the meat.

  4. Cover the edges with a crust.

  5. Seal it with a thick top crust.

Bake and make the gravy

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Set the bones in a pan with just enough water to cover them.

  3. Add port, pepper, and salt for 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.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Is the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it is beaten and marinated.
Sugar
Rubbed into the meat, it adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and wine.
Vinegar
Acidic marinade that helps soften the meat fibres and adds tang.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the marinade and later to the gravy.
Butter
Spread over the meat, it adds richness and moisture during slow baking.

The step that matters

Wash and dry the meat thoroughly. Removing the marinade and surface moisture before seasoning and crusting helps the seasonings stick and keeps the crust from becoming soggy during baking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sugar, port wine, vinegar, pepper, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sugar, port wine, vinegar, pepper, butter. 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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