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Stewed Chop

A slow‑cooked mutton or lamb chop simmered with stock, onion, rice or barley, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Chop

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all fat from the chop and place it in a saucepan.

  2. Cover with stock or water and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Stew

  1. Bring to a boil, then add the chopped onion and rice or barley.

  2. Stew gently for about 1.5 hours until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve with some gravy and rice or barley on the side.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or mutton chop
Provides the meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Rice or barley
Thickens the cooking liquid slightly and adds body to the gravy.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens in the stock.

The step that matters

Stew gently for about 1.5 hours until tender. A hard boil toughens meat proteins and can make the liquid cloudy, while slow simmering breaks down connective tissue gradually, leaving the chop tender and juicy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, pepper. 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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