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Mutton Chops Delicately Stewed

A slow‑cooked stew of mutton chops with onions, carrots, turnips, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Chops Delicately Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Place the mutton chops in a stewpan and cover with cold water.

  2. Add the onion and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  3. Cover the pan and simmer gently for about 45 minutes until tender.

  4. In the last 20 minutes, add the carrots and then the turnips.

  5. Once tender, remove the meat and vegetables and keep warm.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the cooking liquid into a basin and skim off the fat.

  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in enough flour to thicken.

  3. Gradually add the strained gravy, stirring until it boils.

  4. Let the gravy simmer while you arrange the chops and vegetables on a serving dish.

  5. Pour the thickened gravy over the chops and vegetables, and garnish with capers or gherkins 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. Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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 and flavourful during slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the roux that gives the gravy body and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a soft texture after simmering in the cooking liquid.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly sweet flavour and soft texture from simmering in the broth.

The step that matters

Gradually add the strained gravy to the roux, stirring until it boils. Adding liquid all at once to flour and butter can form lumps. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens smooth as it heats and boils.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

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