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Mutton with Terrapin Sauce

Mutton cooked in a sauce of butter, eggs, mustard, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mutton with Terrapin Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the butter and egg yolks together until smooth, adding the mustard.

  2. Put the mixture into the chafing dish with salt and peppers.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir in the chopped egg whites, then add the mutton and sherry.

  2. Cook for 8 minutes and serve very hot.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter to thicken the sauce into a smooth, rich texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Chopped whites add body and a mild, firm texture to the sauce.
Mutton
Provides the main meat, warmed through in the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that cut through the rich butter.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce warm without overheating. Butter and egg yolks can split or curdle if they get too hot, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth. Cooking gently while stirring keeps the emulsion stable.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, egg, pepper, celery, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, egg, pepper, celery, sherry. 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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