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Haricot of Mutton

A stew of mutton chops with carrots, turnip, onion, peas, and French beans, simmered slowly in water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haricot of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Quickly sear the mutton chops in a pan until browned but not cooked through.

  2. Remove the chops and place them in a stewpan.

  3. Wash and dry the vegetables. Dice the carrot and turnip, and slice the onion.

Make the stew

  1. Sprinkle the vegetables with flour and fry them until lightly browned.

  2. If needed, add butter or dripping to the pan.

  3. Add the browned vegetables to the stewpan with the mutton.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and castor sugar, ensuring the dish does not taste sweet.

  5. Pour in enough water or weak stock to just cover the ingredients.

  6. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to avoid boiling.

  7. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

  8. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. About 15 minutes before serving, add the boiled peas and diced French beans.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during slow simmering.
Flour
Browns with the vegetables and thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness as it softens and browns.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body as it softens during the long simmer.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and texture as it cooks down in the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. A rolling boil toughens meat fibres and breaks up the vegetables, while a gentle simmer keeps the mutton tender and the broth clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, flour, butter, pepper, sugar):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, flour, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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