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Mutton Chops, Stewed in Their Own Gravy

A stew of mutton chops simmered with onion, carrots, thyme, and their own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Chops, Stewed in Their Own Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the mutton chops with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the chops in a pot with enough water to cover them.

  3. Add chopped onion, carrots, and thyme.

Stew and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until tender.

  2. Serve hot with the gravy from the pot.

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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during long gentle simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid as it softens.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the stew and gravy.
Thyme
Adds a herbal, aromatic note that complements the rich meat.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Mutton chops are tough connective-tissue cuts. Gentle simmering at low heat slowly breaks down collagen into gelatin, making the meat tender. A hard boil toughens and dries the meat, so keep the liquid at a bare simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, carrot, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, carrot, thyme. 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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