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To Stew Mutton Steaks

Stewed mutton steaks with onions, gravy, and optional shallot or catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Stew Mutton Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut mutton steaks from the best end of a loin or the middle part of a leg.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Stew

  1. Place in a stewpan with sliced onions and cover with water and gravy.

  2. Cook for 20-25 minutes, turning once until done.

Finish the gravy

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  2. Add shallot or catsup if desired.

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. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Mutton steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the liquid.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the stewing liquid as they soften.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running thin.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Cook for 20-25 minutes, turning once until done. Mutton steaks can turn dry and tough if overcooked, while undercooked meat stays chewy because collagen has not broken down. Turning once helps both sides cook evenly in the liquid.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, onion, flour, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, 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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