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Scrag of Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton neck simmered in broth, finished with egg and breadcrumbs, served with carrots or turnips and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Scrag of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and simmer

  1. Wash and trim the scrag of mutton.

  2. Simmer the mutton slowly in water for 2 hours to make broth.

  3. Add the celery and parsley to the broth and continue to simmer for 30 minutes, then remove the mutton.

Finish and serve

  1. Finish it with egg and breadcrumbs in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Garnish with cut carrots or turnips and pour over caper sauce or parsley and butter 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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Scrag of mutton
Long, slow simmering breaks down the tough neck connective tissue, making the meat tender.
Celery
Adds a mild, savoury aroma that flavours the broth.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the broth and the sauce.
Egg (in the method)
Binds the breadcrumbs together and sets in the oven to hold the topping in place.
Breadcrumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, browned coating when baked.

The step that matters

Simmer the mutton slowly. A slow simmer keeps the broth below a hard boil, so the connective tissue softens gradually without the meat fibres tightening and toughening. Rapid boiling makes the meat stringy and can cloud the broth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsley, sauce, carrot):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, sauce, carrot. 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.

More mutton neck recipes

Stew 16Boiled 12Roasted 7Braised 6Roast 6Soup 6 See all 7 →

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