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To Boil Shoulder of Mutton with Oysters

A boiled shoulder of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, and oysters, served with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil Shoulder of Mutton with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Hang the shoulder of mutton for a few days.

  2. Salt it well for two days.

  3. Bone the meat and sprinkle with pepper and ground mace.

  4. Lay oysters over the meat, roll it up tightly, and tie it.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew in a small amount of water with an onion and a few peppercorns until tender.

  2. Prepare gravy.

  3. Stew some oysters in the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  5. Pour the thickened gravy over the mutton after removing the string.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Shoulder of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the meat and to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Stew until tender. Mutton shoulder is tough connective tissue that needs long, gentle simmering in a small amount of liquid to break down and become tender. Stewing too fast or too briefly leaves the meat chewy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, oyster, onion, flour, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, oyster, onion, flour, 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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