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Carrot Peas

A mutton stew with carrot peas, bacon, onions, celery, sweet herbs, mace, stock, and coulis sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carrot Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Trim the neck of mutton.

  2. Saw off the chine bone.

  3. Skin the fat.

  4. Strip the ribs.

  5. Cut the bones about two inches shorter.

  6. Lard the fillet.

Stew the mutton

  1. Place trimmings of meat, onions, celery, sweet herbs, mace, and stock in a stew-pan.

  2. Add the mutton.

  3. Cover with bacon and paper.

  4. Simmer gently until tender.

Make the peas and sauce

  1. Scoop about ½ pint of carrot peas.

  2. Place them in a stew-pan with enough stock to cover.

  3. Boil the peas until the stock is nearly reduced to a glaze.

  4. Add coulis as needed for sauce.

Glaze and serve

  1. Remove the mutton.

  2. Place it in the oven to glaze.

  3. Serve with the sauce on the dish.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Celery + peastop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and moist.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and salt that flavour the meat and stock as it cooks.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds that build the savoury base of the stock.
Carrot peas
Reduced in their own stock to a glaze, concentrating flavour and sweetness.
Stock
Provides moisture and body for the stew and the reduced glaze.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break the mutton apart, while slow, gentle heat dissolves collagen into gelatin for a tender, moist result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, meat, onion, celery, carrot, peas, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, meat, onion, celery, carrot, peas, sauce. 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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