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Baked Mutton in Crust

A whole mutton fillet is encased in a suet crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Mutton in Crust

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. Mix beef suet with water to make a suet crust.

  2. Roll the suet crust out to ¼ inch thick.

  3. Shape the crust into a square large enough to cover the mutton completely.

  4. Place the mutton in the center of the crust.

  5. Fold the crust over the mutton.

  6. Dampen the edges of the crust. Pinch the edges together.

  7. Sprinkle flour over the crust.

Bag and bake

  1. Grease a paper bag large enough to hold the mutton.

  2. Slide the mutton into the bag. Secure the bag tightly.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  4. Cook the mutton for 10 minutes.

  5. Reduce the heat to 300°F (150°C). Cook for an additional hour and 20 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. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  2. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Is the main cooked meat, becoming tender and juicy during the long, gentle baking.
Beef suet
Forms the crust, sealing in moisture and protecting the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Securing the bag and sealing the crust. If the crust edges are not dampened and pinched tightly, or the bag is loose, steam and juices can escape. This leaves the meat drier and the crust less enclosed during baking.

“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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