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Chartreuse of Mutton

A steamed mutton and rice dish seasoned with parsley, lemon, onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chartreuse of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Bring 2 quarts of boiling water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add 1 cup of rice and 2 teaspoons of salt; cook until done.

Assemble the mold

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 cups of cold cooked chopped mutton, 2 beaten eggs, 2 teaspoons of parsley, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of onion juice, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and black and red pepper to taste.

  2. Butter a mold and line the bottom and sides with the cooked rice.

  3. Fill the mold with the seasoned meat mixture and cover with remaining rice.

Steam and serve

  1. Tie a buttered paper over the top and steam for 40 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a platter and serve with tomato sauce.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the filling and gives the dish its meaty flavour.
Rice
Forms a starchy lining and cover that holds the mold's shape when turned out.
Eggs
Bind the meat mixture so it sets firm and holds together when steamed.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Steam must be kept gently and evenly moving around the mold, with the paper sealed. Uneven or lost steam can leave the egg-bound filling underset or dry, so it may not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, mutton, egg, parsley, lemon, pepper, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, mutton, egg, parsley, lemon, pepper, butter. 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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