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Haricot Mutton

A stew of mutton chops with onions, turnips, carrots, and ketchup, simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Haricot Mutton

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the neck of mutton into chops, trim and shape them, and remove the fat.

  2. Slice the onions and cut the turnips and carrots into shapes.

Fry

  1. In a clean frying pan, lightly fry the cutlets in butter over high heat without cooking them.

  2. Fry the vegetables in the same butter for 3-4 minutes without browning them.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the cutlets in a stewpan, layer the vegetables on top, and cover with stock.

  2. Bring the contents to a boil, skim off the fat, and let simmer until the chops are tender.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then add the ketchup and minced pickles.

  4. Serve the chops in a soup dish, pouring the gravy and vegetables over them.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat for the chops, which becomes tender through long simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the stock as they cook down.
Turnips
Add body and a mild, slightly sweet flavour to the gravy.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the gravy as they soften.
Mushroom or walnut ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and umami to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets without browning them. Searing the meat briefly seals in juices and builds flavour, but overcooking it before stewing leaves the chops dry and tough. Keeping the frying light means the meat finishes gently and tender in the simmering liquid.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

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