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Mutton and Chutney Sauce

A sauce of butter, flour, chutney, and stock served over sliced mutton.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton and Chutney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the cold cooked mutton into neat slices of uniform size.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  3. Add the mutton slices and fry them slightly until heated and browned.

  4. Remove the mutton and keep it warm.

Make the chutney sauce

  1. Stir the flour into the pan, then mix in the chutney, chopping any large pieces finely.

  2. Add the stock and stir until the mixture boils.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main protein; frying briefly adds browning and savoury flavour to the slices.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries flavour and helps the mutton brown.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the stock.
Chutney
Adds sweetness, acidity and fruity flavour to the sauce.
Stock
Liquid that dissolves the pan residue and forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter and pan juices before adding the stock. Flour must be cooked briefly in the fat and then stirred into the liquid so it hydrates evenly; adding it unmixed or adding stock too quickly leaves lumps. Stir steadily until the sauce boils and thickens.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, potato. 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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