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Haricot of Mutton

A mutton stew with turnip, herbs, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haricot of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and fry

  1. Brown the mutton chops in bacon fat or lard.

  2. In the same fat, fry the slices of turnip.

Stew

  1. Place the mutton and turnip in a stewpan with enough stock to cover them.

  2. Add the bunch of herbs, salt, and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, add a dash of vinegar.

  2. Serve with strips of fried bread.

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. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 as it simmers slowly.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture as it cooks in the stock.
Stock
Supplies liquid that cooks the meat and turnip and forms the base of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, fatty broth.

The step that matters

Browning the mutton chops. Searing the meat in hot fat creates browned, savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat added to the stew gives a flatter, less rich broth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, vinegar, bread. 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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