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
Prepare
Prepare the mutton by trimming the neck and cutting it into cutlets.
Beat each cutlet to about ½ inch thick and shape them nicely.
Peel and slice the onion.
Brown and make the sauce
In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the onion and cutlets.
Fry the cutlets over high heat until they are nicely browned on both sides.
Remove the cutlets and pour off excess grease, leaving the onion.
Add flour to the stewpan and gradually stir in the stock until it boils.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,874 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton
- Forms the main body of the dish and provides the rich, meaty flavour when browned.
- Butter
- Carries the frying heat and browns the cutlets and onion, adding richness.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
- Second stock
- Makes up the liquid for the sauce, adding savoury depth.
The step that matters
Frying the cutlets over high heat. Searing over high heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building the flavour of the meat and sauce. Crowding the pan or under-heating it leads to steaming and grey, pale cutlets.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, flour, carrot, turnip, butter):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, flour, carrot, turnip, 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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