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Mutton Stew with Beans or Potatoes

A stew of mutton with onions, flour, water, herbs, and either beans or potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Stew with Beans or Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Brown the mutton thoroughly in a pot.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sprinkle in the flour to thicken, browning it slightly.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water while stirring.

  4. Add the kitchen bouquet and cook for 2 hours or more, depending on the quantity of meat.

Add the vegetables

  1. If using beans, add them after they have been partially cooked.

  2. If using potatoes, add them about an hour before serving.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,444 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + laureltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat and rich savory flavor once browned and slowly simmered.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a stew-like sauce as it browns slightly.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens and browns in the pot.
Beans
Add body and starch to the stew, absorbing flavor from the cooking liquid.
Potatoes
Add body and starch, softening and thickening the stew as they cook.

The step that matters

Browning the mutton thoroughly. Browning creates Maillard reactions that build deep, savory flavor in the meat and fond in the pot. Under-browned meat produces a flat, greyish stew, so the meat should be well coloured before liquid is added.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, flour, parsley, thyme, laurel):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, flour, parsley, thyme, laurel. 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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