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Baked Minced Mutton

A baked dish of minced mutton with onions, herbs, spices, gravy, and mashed potato topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Minced Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Finely mince the cold roast mutton and place it in a mixing bowl.

  3. Add the chopped onions, savory herbs, pepper, coarse sea salt, mace or nutmeg, and gravy to the bowl. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and top with a layer of mashed potatoes.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until heated through and golden on top.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Cold roast mutton
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the casserole.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a topping that becomes golden and crisp in the oven.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth so the minced meat does not dry out.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften through the baking.

The step that matters

Baking until heated through and golden. The meat is already cooked, so the bake mainly heats it through. Enough time is needed for the centre to become hot, and the potato topping browns through dry surface heat, so the casserole should be checked for both.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, pepper, potato. 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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