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Noisettes of Mutton

A dish of sliced mutton browned in butter, served over creamy potatoes and garnished with French beans or peas and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Noisettes of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Fillet the mutton from the bones and cut it into slices ½ inch thick, trimming them neatly.

Cook and glaze

  1. Fry the mutton slices in butter until browned.

  2. Glaze and drain the browned mutton lightly.

Dish and serve

  1. Dish the mutton on a bed of creamy potatoes.

  2. Garnish with French beans or peas.

  3. Pour the tomato sauce around 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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, which browns in butter to develop savoury flavour on the surface.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the meat surface, adding richness and aroma.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and moisture to balance the rich, browned meat.

The step that matters

Fry the mutton slices in butter until browned. Browning relies on surface dryness and steady heat. Crowded or wet slices steam instead of browning, losing the savoury crust that flavours the dish.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, tomato, sauce, beans):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Okrafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, tomato, sauce, beans. 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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